


Little Monsters

by Letterblade



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (and she's there for one scene), Azure Moon Route, BDSM, Bondage, Cages, Captivity, Cock & Ball Torture, Contraceptive Use, Dorothea is the only sane person in this fic, During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Everybody Has So Many Feelings, F/M, Forced Exhibitionism, Human Furniture, Impact Play, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Muzzles, Polyamory, Rough Sex, Sub!Dimitri, Suicidal Thoughts, alternate universe - d/s verse, and makes questionable decisions, biological imperative kink, dom!edelgard, sub!hubert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:00:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 72,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letterblade/pseuds/Letterblade
Summary: There are three notable things about the unexpected prize that Minister von Vestra's patrol has dragged home from the Oghma mountains. His extraordinary strength and brutality requires him to be heavily shackled and muzzled at all times. He'd carried an ornamental dagger in his boot, which only the Emperor herself knows the meaning of. And Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd was supposed to be dead.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 73
Kudos: 109
Collections: DS-Verse FE3H Fics, Dimigard Week, FE3H Polyship Week





	1. Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is largely complete, and will be updating every few days through both dimigard week and polyship week. Woo! It takes place in and is inspired by the d/s-verse AU created by [dustofwarfare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare) for the [Imperative](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654516) series. It's in its own continuity, just shares the same general concept.
> 
> Here’s the standard note/disclaimer about this AU: This fic and others in this 'verse are predicated on the idea there's a biological imperative to fulfill dominance/submission urges (including some sadism/masochism) and might trip some sensitivities because of it. These urges aren't intended to be strong enough to blur consent, but if you're sensitive to the whole "biological need to submit/dominate" thing, keep this in mind.
> 
> Do mind the tags beyond that. There’s some pretty extensive discussion of suicidal ideation, especially in the first chapter, that nobody involved is handling in a super healthy fashion. Dubcon tag is not for the D/s-verse, but because Dimitri is neither free nor of particularly sound mind at various points; they’re both into it and even have safewords. Look at them pretending to be functional adults!
> 
> Thanks to [Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mllelaurel/pseuds/mllelaurel), my intrepid beta; to Other Lily, Quorn, Jan, Justy, and Dusty for cheerleading and listening to my constant nattering about this life-consuming fic; and to the fabulous [Lionheart](https://twitter.com/LionheartNsfw), who kind of started it all with a twitter comment and came full circle with an amazing [cover](https://twitter.com/LionheartNsfw/status/1320038478059606021)!

**I — LIFE**

“There is a matter that must be brought to your attention.” That was all Hubert had told Edelgard before leading her below.

She barely ever comes down here, of course. The ancient dungeon halls below the palace in Enbarr are scrupulously clean these days, well-lit by braziers, patrolled by cats and rat-terriers, but still. They are what they are. Hubert looms close, keeping her in his shadow as if this could protect her from the memories.

“I do apologize for the circumstance,” he says, almost gently, as they pause before a heavy door and he gestures for his guards to open it. “It was the only facility we had at the ready in which we could hold him without drugging him heavily, and I wished to afford you the opportunity to speak to him sober if you desire. Well. As sober as he is capable.”

Edelgard frowns, bewildered. It is far too early to turn the tide on the Agarthans. Cichol in some monstrous rage?

She has a moment to blink in the torchlit cell before the prisoner notices her.

“He’s alive?” she blurts, genuinely stunned.

Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd sits in a ragged nest of what might have been a blanket once, wearing torn and filthy undershirt and trousers, streaked with wounds new and old. He’s shackled: wrists, ankles, neck, even waist, with the heaviest chains Edelgard’s ever seen on a prisoner. Necessary, she supposes, given his Crest. Dried blood streaks his chin, shadowed under the thick steel wires of a cage-muzzle strapped to his face. He smells…distressing.

“We captured him in the Oghma Mountains,” Hubert says. “It was hardly easy. I’ll have the full casualty report to you in writing.” His mouth twists, his usual dry and morbid smile. “He ripped off part of a man’s face with his teeth even after we shackled him. Hence the muzzle.”

Dimitri twitches. Tightens in his hunched position like a wounded animal, and Edelgard feels her throat go dry, clenching in familiarity. His eyes open, burning, find her—

His single eye. The other’s gone, a starburst of furrowed flesh, healed poorly in deep welts. No battle wound, that. Wrinkled like it had been carved out and sewn up.

That surprises her. The roar of her name, the way he surges as far as the chains will let him, straining like a madman—that doesn’t. It would be a pleasant twist if two years on the run had given him time to shake off his delusions, but life is rarely that kind. She holds herself ramrod still, waits as he rages nonsense, spitting wild accusations of murder and genocide. The muzzle must have been altered for a human, she thinks distantly. Enough room in the jaw to speak, yet still a shield between those snapping teeth and his keepers.

Dark fire flickers in Hubert’s palm as the heavy links strain, a low creak of metal, but it holds. Barely.

“Are you done?” she asks flatly, once Dimitri’s screamed himself hoarse and fallen back in his chains.

His eye drifts off her, and he rocks once, arms wrapped round his knees as far as the chains allow, and starts laughing. Blood drips down his bare forearms where he’d rubbed himself raw in his manacles. The hairs on the back of her neck prickle. It’s like seeing him crack right down to the bedrock of his mind in the Holy Tomb, this laughter that goes on and on, except this time it’s hollow. Resigned.

Alisa. Second Imperial Princess. She’d loved the arts. She’d taught her littlest sister to paint. She’d laughed like that after a session left all the veins in her face black and swollen, her eyes dripping like rotten fruit. Kept laughing until the rats ate her bones.

Edelgard presses her tongue hard against the backs of her teeth and clenches her jaw, refusing to let her bile rise.

“I could do it swift and painless,” Hubert says quietly. “You know that. I await only your word, Your Majesty.”

Dimitri huffs, laughter cracking into silence, and looks up at her with his single eye wide and wet. “So much more than I’d expect, El.”

Something jars in her chest, and she clenches her fist so hard she feels her arm shake. Her brain rattles. There’s something nagging at her, like a cracked-open door that will slam shut forever if she gives Hubert that word. If she lets that blue eye go out as Hubert punctures his brain stem with the stiletto in his sleeve.

She forces her jaw to unclench, swallowing acid. “Treat his wounds and clean him up. Under sedation, if you must.” Her dominance is creeping into her voice, she can tell. It’s not even intentional. She’s just holding herself together with all the power she has. “If you can appoint a chamber and provide more comfortable restraints, have it done, but take the precautions you must. I won’t have him harming any more of our people.”

If Hubert is disappointed in her, he does not give it voice. Does not let it show except perhaps in the cast of his eyes. “It shall be done.”

The laughter finally fades.

Dimitri’s crumpled, corpse-limp, head bowed between his knees as far as his muzzle allows.

She wonders for a moment if her dominance had affected him. But that would be ridiculous. He’s a dominant himself, isn’t he? And she doubts anyone from Faerghus would have as flexible an approach to their dominance as her Ferdinand.

More likely, she thinks with a cold twist in her gut, he’s just given up. As if his imminent execution was the last solace that she had cruelly wrested away.

She needs to get out of this cell.

“I’m not going to have you tortured, Dimitri,” she says, more than a little stiff. “I see no point in trying to explain matters to you, but I am not a savage.”

He makes a very faint, strangled noise into his knees, and she can see all the muscles in his broad back jump once under his thin shirt, then still.

“Come, Hubert,” she manages, and turns to leave.

* * *

Hubert follows her, a gaunt and loyal shadow, until she’s up a flight of stairs and out of the line of sight of any other. The guards of the Imperial Household don’t need to see their Emperor pressing her back to the cool stone and forcing herself to breathe. In through her nose. Hold for two seconds. Out through her mouth. As slowly as she can.

Hubert puts himself in her line of sight, and she reaches up and grabs a handful of his hair. He studies her with a brief flicker of his eyes, then sinks to his knees as she pulls, following her lead perfectly.

She buries both hands in her hair and kneads him like a cat with a blanket until some piece of her heart settles further.

“Was there anything of note in his effects?” she asks, once her pulse has steadied. “Anything to indicate he’s working with somebody?”

“No. He was alone when the patrol first spotted him, and remained alone during the days it took to track him down. He bore no correspondence, writing materials, marks of passage, or even money. The royal signet’s been confirmed in Cornelia’s possession, but he didn’t have a copy, or his Relic, or any other proof of identity beyond the Blaiddyd armor. Only—” Hubert stops himself, huffing disdain through his nose. “Frankly, it’s hard to believe he made it as far as he did with nothing but some jerky, a vulnerary, and a few stolen lances.”

“Only what?” Edelgard prods, squeezing both her handfuls of his hair.

Hubert takes a slow, careful breath, then lets it out, like it’s something he doesn’t want to tell her. “He had one keepsake. A dagger, wrought too small to be a useful weapon for a man his size. It looked well-made and well-kept.”

Edelgard goes very still for a moment. Then makes herself breathe. “I lost my dagger at Garreg Mach.”

“I am aware.”

“But how would he…” She trails off, hands tightening, and quite impulsively leans down to kiss Hubert’s head. Her mind feels like it’s skating around something big and strange and forgotten, and she beats it back, quavering. “Send it up to my chambers. I suppose I shall see if it’s the same one. And attend me in the evening, of course.”

* * *

Edelgard sits at her vanity for a long, long time after dinner.

She’s still rattled, more than she’d like to admit. She takes her time with her hair: a hundred strokes with the boar-bristle to keep it silky, which she so rarely manages these days. And stares at herself for an embarrassing stretch, nostalgic for her old soft brown.

It’s absurd. She never lets herself look back like this. Of all the things to mourn from her pointless, long-lost days…

 _El_ , he’d called her.

She bites her lip hard. And finally caves and opens the box that had been left on her desk.

It’s her dagger. Of course it’s her dagger. She’d recognize that indigo-wrapped handle anywhere. The exact way it softened and wore under her fingers as she clutched it for hours, small comfort in the bone-raw months after the experiments. It’s a little dirty after the time it’s spent tucked in a mad stray’s boot, and there’s a ding in the crossguard that hadn’t been there before, but it’s otherwise just fine.

She clutches it over her heart for a moment, like she had when she was littler. Then sets it down with a frown.

This doesn’t prove anything. Only that he’d found it wherever she’d dropped it. Held onto it through everything—why? Had he recognized it was hers? She’d carried it at Garreg Mach, but tucked under her uniform jacket. He could have seen it when she’d stripped down for heavy training, she supposes. But she wouldn’t have expected his memory to be that good. Unless he’s…

“Mwah,” comes an insistent kitty voice from the floor near her feet.

“Oh, dear Lady Celestine,” Edelgard sighs fondly, and reaches down to scoop up her aging black cat with great care. She’s lost weight since those days when Edelgard would clutch her to her freshly healed chest for as long as she could get away with—her dear kitty who she hadn’t seen since her uncle had rushed her out of the palace in the middle of the night. Cat, dagger, and Hubert, her three comforts. Celestine tolerates being cradled like a baby for a time, then cranes her neck, and Edelgard sets her gently on her desk.

Celestine promptly goes to sniff the dagger. “Do you remember that?” Edelgard murmurs, scritching between her ears. “I’m sure it smells like all sorts of strange things by now.” Sniffing done, Celestine begins to rub it, working fresh black cat hair into the handle wraps, and something in Edelgard’s chest aches fondly. “It’s…an absurd thought, dear Lady. I don’t remember Faerghus very well, but I would know if I’d been introduced to the prince of all people. Wouldn’t I?”

The small lady mrrs and curls up into a black puddle on the imperial desk, which in fairness, is about as much of an answer as Edelgard could expect. Edelgard, in turn, leans over and buries her face in her.

That boy—he’d been blond, she was quite sure, but that was hardly notable in Faerghus of all places. But he’d been small, a little shy, pliant. Affectionate. Looking back on it, he must have been a submissive—she’d certainly started to realize some things then, given the little thrill she got every time she grabbed his hand and ordered him on some adventure. Every time he went along with it.

Nothing like Dimitri. But of course, the girl who’d known him was gone. If that boy had survived the Tragedy, lived Dimitri’s life, how could he be any more recognizable than she?

And even if it was true, even if life was so absurd that her silly childhood crush was the mad lost prince of Faerghus languishing in her dungeon, why would it matter? A little friendship couldn’t possibly change the situation. Not with how much he hated her.

Hubert knocks on her door as she’s running her fingers along the flat of the blade, dulled with time, trying to remember what that boy had told her when he’d pressed it into her hands. Something about cutting her path. It had stuck with her, been something she’d held onto during the darkest days after she’d been freed, but what was it, exactly?

Edelgard sets it aside and receives him, same as always. “Make this time for me,” she murmurs, and holds out one hand, palm-up.

“I am yours, Your Majesty,” he answers, and kisses her palm. Some days she’d mash his face so he makes disgruntled noises, but she’s nowhere near relaxed enough for that right now. There are miles of high protocol, obeisances, inspections, wrought into Adrestian Imperial tradition. But she and Hubert are hardly traditionalists. They’d both have to scrub all their skin off if they did anything like that. So there’s just this: the little ritual to make it clear that nothing short of an emergency will pull him away from her.

“Strip and kneel, then,” she says comfortably, and he does just that. It’s not particularly quick, given his layers, but he’s efficient and unfussy, and takes his place at her feet without even complaining about his pillow. _That_ had been a few months of training, convincing her dear idiot masochist that she’s not going to have him bony-kneed on the bare floor for long, no matter how much he likes the idea, just because she’s finally hurting him in sexier ways.

The jangling in her belly calms as she hooks her fingers under his collar—elegantly tooled leather, wrought with eagles and her personal arms, vivid black against his deathly pale skin. Hubert is here, where he should be. That. Helps. His shoulders ratchet down an inch as he settles, and his breathing becomes slow and steady. But she can practically see the knots of tension still lodged between his bones.

“You _can_ speak freely,” Edelgard says at last, with a soft sigh.

“I am to speak, then?” he drawls, never any less ironic even when he’s naked on his knees.

“Something’s weighing on you. I _do_ know you, regardless of what you might wish.”

“And here I thought we were strangers,” Hubert says, a trace of a smile as she runs fingers through his hair.

“You think I’m making a poor choice in keeping him alive, don’t you?”

“If that is what you command me to say,” Hubert answers dryly.

“ _Hubert_.”

“Naturally, yes. Even with his sanity intact, he’d be a considerable risk and liability, given the unrest in Faerghus. Seiros may be useful leverage against certain forces, but Dimitri has no relevance to them. At the most, they allowed him to survive the Tragedy as a vengeful pawn, but that could just as easily have been an accident. His only value would be as a figurehead to give Fraldarius’ rebellion legitimacy, or perhaps as a pawn for Duke Riegan, and we have no interest in letting either of those come to pass.”

Edelgard absorbs that without comment. None of it surprises her. “How was he? After we left?”

“Sedated, mostly, as you suggested. He flew into a rage the moment we attempted to treat him. The doctor suggested he might benefit from a full night’s sleep, as he’d shown signs of hallucinating, so he’ll be under for the duration. I have an engineer working on more comfortable arrangements. It may be possible to suppress his Crest power to make things more manageable, but that’s uncertain at the moment, and may require directly involving unwanted parties.

“I’m beginning to assume Cornelia behaved quite distastefully with him,” Edelgard says, biting back her rage. She wished she could be surprised. If she’d been left entirely to her own devices, she never would have chosen one of _them_ as Faerghus’ governor, but. Well. Their time shall come.

“It would seem so. His more recent wounds are from battle, but he shows signs of physical torture, including the removal of his eye. Perhaps magical as well. Though she did not seem to have performed internal surgery or manipulated his blood.”

“At least there’s that.” More distasteful, in a twisted sense. Cornelia hadn’t even served her people’s dubious research goals, simply played with her food. Edelgard turns a lock of Hubert’s hair in her fingers, over and over, coiling and releasing. Her heart feels red-hot, knocking against her ribs, a gnawing ache she hasn’t felt since the Professor stood against her at Garreg Mach. “Let’s make sure they don’t know we have him.”

“Understandable. I’ve kept him under our highest security.” Hubert studies her intently through the fall of his hair. “Does he have a hold on you?”

Edelgard chews on her lip a little, and stretches, settling her ankles on his shoulder. He rearranges himself a little, folding into a bony footrest. “I don’t know,” she says at last, frank. “If I say yes, would you kill him in his sleep?”

“I’d at least have to consider it. It is my duty.”

“To clear my path. Including from myself.”

Her footrest stiffens, some thread of tension she didn’t expect running through her dear Hubert, and he lifts his head, one hand coming up to cradle her ankles and make sure they don’t fall from his care. “Edelgard,” he murmurs. Her name—he’s serious. “Does that…trouble you?”

Their eyes lock for a moment. She sets her jaw. “Let me reassure you. I have no intention of letting him be a liability. I certainly won’t release him, not as he is. And my path will not change.”

Something almost sad flickers across Hubert’s face. “I should point out,” he says, with care. “A man of his character may be happier to die than to languish for a lifetime.”

She feels her throat tighten, and looks away. Silence hangs.

“If I could bear all of this for you, I would,” Hubert whispers.

“I know,” she says, voice very small. “I know.”

“Please allow me to apologize,” Hubert says, and lifts her feet from his shoulder to lower them, lower himself, and kiss her toes. “By bringing this to your attention, I’ve caused you unnecessary heartache. If I had not—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Hubert,” Edelgard says, small and calm. She barely has the energy to put any dominance into it. She barely has to. “If you had killed Dimitri behind my back, I would have been very put out.”

He lets out a huff of a sigh, unsurprised. “You had thought for these past two years that Cornelia had killed Dimitri behind your back.”

“Yes, _and_ not bothered to tell me that she’d lost him, and I am very put out at her too, but _she_ has not sworn obedience to me.” She lifts one foot, clenches her bare toes to catch a few strands of hair, and tugs. “You have. You did well to keep him from wreaking havoc in the wild. _And_ you did well to bring him to my attention. I’ll have no apologies. If my apparent heartache troubles you, apply your mouth until I am relieved of it.”

A wry smile tugs at Hubert’s lips, and he bows his head a touch in acknowledgment, even as that means tugging harder against her tenuous grip. “My thanks, Your Majesty.”

* * *

The update from Hubert and his staff the next evening, which Edelgard doesn’t ask for until she’s finished all her usual matters of state, is that Dimitri’s attempted suicide at least four times throughout the day.

“They’ve managed to restrain him so that he cannot bash his head in,” Hubert says, leading her down a different corridor. It’s in the same particularly tidy, particularly un-dungeonlike, but fanatically secure basement wing they’re keeping the monstrous archbishop herself in. Apparently she’s put herself in some sort of arcane Nabatean trance and Hubert’s minions have to come in and dust her from time to time.

Dimitri is in no such blissful state. Dimitri is scrubbed clean, dressed in fresh plain clothes, tidily bandaged, and locked in a pair of steel stocks: one bolted to the floor and securing his ankles as he sits in a jarringly mundane stateroom chair, and one yoking his wrists and neck and suspended by heavy chains fastened to both ceiling and floor, preventing him from standing. There’s still a wire cage over his mouth. It seems thicker than last time, with a greenish sheen that might be agarthium and Edelgard wonders if Hubert’s had it made special in the past day.

“Has he eaten?” she asks him quietly.

“He’s refused all food, though it seems they’ve been able to force down some water and broth.” Hubert takes up his post by the door, batlike, ever a wary eye on their captive. “He concussed himself rather badly during his last attempt. They’ll have to wake him every hour through the night.” His mouth thins. “There’s a chance he won’t see the morning, though if he does, he should recover readily from there.”

He’s bandaged, Edelgard can see, the dull red of new bleeding seeping in. He seems vague, unfocused, and it isn’t until she pulls up a chair to face him, a safe five feet away, that he registers her. A rattling shudder. One bark of rage, wordless.

“Dimitri,” she says, firm. An edge of dominance. Just to see. His eye snaps to her. He’s shaking a little, a fine tremor that sends a soft clink running up to the ceiling.

“Edelgard,” he answers, a low snarl. His voice is bone-dry, wrecked.

“There is something I wish to ask you.”

He jerks with a sound that might be a snort. “Don’t waste your breath. I know nothing of use to you.”

She reaches into a fold of her heavy red skirt and pulls out the dagger. “You were carrying this. Why?”

His mask of silent rage goes slack as he stares at it. Long enough that Edelgard is almost certain of the answer. “Don’t play coy, El,” he grits out at last.

Fair enough, she thinks, and bites the inside of her lip, invisibly, hard. It’s difficult enough to speak of matters this personal with _Hubert_ , never mind a man who wants to tear out her beating heart. “I spent some time in Faerghus when I was small, and met a boy there, and did my best to teach him how to dance. He gave me this. But in the time since, I’d forgotten his name. Was he—was that you?”

The mask cracks. Dimitri can’t look away, can’t even bow his head, immobilized as he is, and Edelgard’s gut flickers between cold pity and a red-hot, entirely inappropriate satisfaction at having this incomprehensible man so exposed. He can only squeeze his eyes shut and bare his teeth in a snarl of raw pain. And laugh. Again. As broken as before, humorless, until he’s wheezing for air.

“So,” he gasps finally. “You didn’t remember. Back at school.” Another surge of laughter shakes him. “I’d wondered. Whether you were scorning me for some scheme, or whether I meant so little that you’d forgotten.”

“It had nothing to do with what you meant,” she says, and then stops herself. Tucks the dagger back away. No excuses. Certainly not to _him_. “Why didn’t you ask me, if it troubled you so?”

He’s silent, twitching a little in his bonds. His hands are white-knuckled fists. “Volkhard von Arundel,” he rumbles at last.

Edelgard blinks, heart rattling faster against her ribs. _Thales_. What did he know? “My uncle,” she prompts, keeping her voice matter-of-fact.

“A beast I would hunt to the ends of the earth. I came to Garreg Mach to seek proof. Nothing more.” The next spurt of laughter is rankly bitter. “Back when I believed you innocent of the matter. Yet how could you not respond when I caged your blood and regent for trial in Faerghus? So I left that door closed.”

“Trial,” Edelgard echoes, feeling like a dolt the moment it leaves her lips. She genuinely hadn’t expected it. Not particularly compatible with his usual method of revenge.

“Faerghus had to know the truth.” He shakes with it, and finally pries his eye open to stare at the ceiling. “I believed that once, didn’t I? That I could find the truth. Not merely free Duscur, but _exonerate_. That there would even be a point to such a thing. Goddess. What an idiot I was.”

“That would not have ended well, no,” Edelgard says, voice a touch thin. She’s never gotten the impression Thales intended the invasion of Duscur. That was mere human opportunism, typical noble greed. Right—Dimitri’s retainer had been from that land. He had a personal stake in it, she supposes.

“So you have your answer,” Dimitri says, slow and weary. “What of it?”

“I…” Edelgard lifts her chin, just slightly. “Clarity, I suppose. It was a selfish thing to ask.”

“Foolish for a monster like you to care about that,” Dimitri murmurs.

Edelgard busies herself tucking the dagger away. There was no point in letting his delusion hurt her. Nothing to be gained from the burning frustration at an idiot who’d think she’d arrange to murder her own mother when she was _thirteen_. “If you are ever interested in hearing the truth, you need only ask.”

“What reason would you have to speak it?”

 _Nothing_ to be gained, she reminds herself firmly, and keeps her face blank. “The same reason anyone might have.”

Something flickers across his face, and after a long moment, he drops her gaze, hunching as much as the stocks will allow him.

Silence hangs.

He shouldn’t be sitting. The instinct is piercing, intrusive. He should be on his knees. But, of course, it would be agony to leave him shackled that way for—what, half a day now? The sleepless night? Forever, if she means to spare his life?

“Dimitri,” she ventures. “I.” _Want_ to tell you, she meant to say, and her throat closes up. She feels perilously shaky. No excuses. No doubt. She cannot want to be understood. Not like this.

 _What would it matter?_ It’s a treacherous thought. _He’ll never leave this room again._

“Finish it or leave me,” he says.

She considers telling him everything. She considers slitting his throat with the dagger he’d given her, cutting down a weed on her path. She considers kissing his bandaged forehead.

He sits in silence, attention drifting, going still as stone.

She stands, so abruptly her chair grinds on the floor, and leaves.

* * *

In her chambers, Edelgard orders Hubert to fuck her until she can’t think. He does his best. She forgives his shortcomings, as it is not a matter of his performance but rather of how persistent her thoughts are, kisses his forehead, and goes to sleep with his familiar bony warmth against her feet. The foot of her bed. He’d insisted ever since they’d finally, _painfully_ awkward, fumbled across that line of intimacy, some months after the war began. She finds it odd. But each of them has their ways of making sense of the absurdity of their lives.

She contemplates at times what it might have been like to be presented as a gift at age six, the key to her professional collar pressed into the chubby hand of the four-year-old she was meant to serve. The thought makes her brain want to turn itself inside-out, and she doubts it would be much different if she’d turned out to be a submissive after all, as Hubert had. Sheer luck. It’s not as if something as small as their natures would matter against the institutions of empire.

Yet in spite of all of that, he serves her on his own terms, and whenever she thinks on it, she remains in awe of his force of will.

She wants to stroke his hair in his sleep, but the faintest touch will wake him, and he sleeps little enough as it is. Instead, she watches his side rise and fall and cannot imagine living without him.

She dozes off in time.

She wakes, her usual screams muffled by her bed-curtains, from nightmare after nightmare of Dimitri’s corpse. Built into the desk from which she ruled his conquered lands. Pristine and bleeding from his dagger-slit throat as she straddles him. Headless in the city square.

Rat-eaten and chained to her in the dark.

Hubert puts water and two raspberry-jam cookies into her hands.

She doesn’t speak of the nightmares. She rarely does. She rests her forehead on his chest; he affords her a gangly arm.

“I…need to get some air,” she says at last, small and tired, and he unwraps the gangle and nods.

“The first audience is at the ninth bell, my lady.”

“I know.”

She’s unlikely to sleep again before then. It could happen, but it doesn’t always, and she’s far antsier than usual, given—well. Most nights she’d wander the palace gardens in her dressing gown, or perhaps try to tire herself out in the training yard. Hubert shadows her, she knows. Privacy is rarely hers, but the illusion can be comforting.

She knows where she’s going this night, of course. It feels almost like resignation, passing into the secure wing.

“He yet lives, Your Majesty,” says the guard at the door. “He’s…raving. Has been for a while now. The doctor isn’t sure whether it’s his injury or sheer madness.”

“I see.” Is there a point in pretending she’s not going to do this? Not particularly. “Let me in.”

* * *

Dimitri’s not raving by the time Edelgard pads through his stateroom-cell door. He’s straight up sobbing. The tail end of it, maybe, spaced out and wrung dry between stretches of heaving silence and choked-out words, so soft and sandpaper-raspy that she has to pad a little closer to hear them. “I’m sorry.” She has to squint for a moment, bleary eyes adjusting to the overlit chamber. His big gaunt-muscled body is limp in his stocks, the only thing holding him up. “I’m so—”

He pants, flinches full-body like he’s been struck, falls limp again. “I know. There are…no words. Father. I know. Every…everything I have done, every inch of my being, has failed you. I can’t even join you. I trie—” Another flinch. “You’re right. You’re right. There is nothing, nothing I could do to atone, Dedue. Nothing.”

“Dimitri,” Edelgard calls, low, almost hesitant. This—she hadn’t expected it to be this bad.

Silence hangs.

“I…still don’t remember how I lost you,” Dimitri mumbles, raw and abject. “I remember hearing your voice. Somebody called to fall back, to Lady Rhea’s side. I-I don’t think it was you. I could only think to reach Edelgard. Mad. Mad beast. I was useless. Always. Claude of all people covered my back for a time, I don’t know how he found me. I…never thanked him. But when the bodies were counted, you—I should have been with you. Professor…”

Edelgard’s chest clenches. Byleth. First to fall. She’d accepted all the cost of her path long ago, but it always felt—far, far heavier, with her teacher. Even if she’d chosen Dimitri—

No. There’s no point in thinking about what could have been, what she regrets. Her path is set. Byleth is dead.

He must still at least see, she thinks, so she puts herself in front of him. “Dimitri,” she says again, sharper.

He looks right through her for a while, sagging in his bonds, brow crumpled. He’s red-eyed, drawn with thirst, face and muzzle a mess of tears and snot. Blood smears his mouth, runs down his chin, like he’s bitten his lips raw.

“Mother,” he says at last, voice small, pleading, and Edelgard’s mind goes white. “Mother. I wanted to. I…would have…if I could. Please believe me. My heart…my heart would have been strong enough to kill her. I swear. Your own daughter.” His voice breaks entirely. “I…I’m sorry. I can never be sorry enough. I—I wasn’t fast enough, I wasn’t strong enough, never enough—”

Edelgard breaks out of her ice-frozen horror with a strangled noise and slaps him, hard and ringing.

He takes it with a grunt, listing, and his wide eye snaps into focus. Pink blooms on his temple—the only spot she _could_ slap him without hitting either a bandage or his muzzle. Heat spikes in her blood.

“I am Edelgard,” she snaps. “And I did _not_ kill my mother. See with your eye.”

He’s silent and still for a long, terrible while, long enough that she worries she’s made his head worse.

“Did you have Cornelia leave the other one for you?” he asks at last, slow and numb.

“I wouldn’t tell you to use it if I had, now would I?” she says dryly.

He runs his tongue over his mangled lips, brow furrowing. “It’s a ploy.” His voice stays slow, thick and broken. “You’ll let me hope and then get the ice cream spoon.”

She blinks at him, genuinely trying to figure out if he’s making a joke. “I’m not going to dirty a good ice cream spoon like that. That’s convoluted.”

“You’re convoluted.”

“Not convoluted enough to plan a royal assassination at the ripe age of thirteen, no, but you have no interest in the truth—”

He makes a raw-throated yell of denial like she’s never heard since the dungeons and flings himself against his bonds, sending himself swaying. Six inches to one side. Six inches to the other. All the play he’s got. There’s a constant tremor in his right elbow, she’s realizing, some spasm of muscle.

“For fuck’s sake, Dimitri,” Edelgard blurts, raw. “If you’d just stop trying to kill yourself, you could sleep in a bed instead of _this._ ”

He barks laughter. “And if the people of Fódlan just stop fighting for their freedom and lick your boots, you won’t have to send your dogs to string their corpses from Fhirdiad’s ramparts. Spoken like any corrupt tyrant.”

Edelgard’s gut twists. “She’s _._ Not. Mine. And I _will_ kill her. When Fódlan is secure and I can afford to deal with an enemy that could reduce the entirety of Fhirdiad to rubble in an instant.”

Dimitri freezes, sputtering blood. “That’s—”

“But you know nothing of the secrets of Fódlan, you know nothing of the Church you serve, and you know nothing of what happened to our families. I cannot begrudge you your ignorance _or_ your rage, but it is starting to get very frustrating.”

“Edelgard,” he growls, low and thick. “Whatever you claim, you started this war. You are emperor and general, and you are responsible for your subordinates. Your pointless war has ravaged my country, killed the Professor and Dedue and thousands of my people, robbed Duscur of its chance for restoration, robbed my family of their chance to rest in peace, and robbed me of my will, my mind, my meaning, my hope, my pride, and even my death. If there was a single shred of human mercy in you, you would let me join my family, but instead you wallow in my utter defeat and pretend that you are righteous simply because you refuse to flay me. You do not have the _right_ to speak to me of frustration.”

Edelgard stares at him, blood cold.

For a moment there, he’d almost sounded like a prince again.

“And if I could bow,” he grits out, “and lick the floor at your feet for the chance to die, Edelgard, I would. I have nothing left. Do you want me as your begging whore, is that it? To parade me in chains? Shall I drink your piss on the broken throne of Faerghus? How can I make you let me go? What must I do to _die?_ ”

She isn’t sure how long they’re frozen there, staring at each other. She feels like her skin is covered in needles, blood pounding in her ears. For a moment, shame churning in her belly, she drops his gaze. _She_ drops _his_ gaze.

She’s running out of excuses. She pulls her resolve together, one armor plate at a time. Swears a silent oath to settle things with Duscur in his honor, once it’s done. Her eyes are hot. She clenches her trembling jaw.

She—isn’t armed. Foolish. She could get something from the guards, she supposes. Or strangle him. Not what she’d consider a kind execution under most circumstances, but—

Her chest feels like an open wound for no acceptable reason. She pushes that shy-smiling, toe-stepping boy from Faerghus as far from her mind as she can. Better to forget again. She’d accepted this. She just—this, Byleth, why did it have to keep destroying the people she—

 _Fuck_.

“Listen to the truth,” she says. Stalling. Probably making it worse. She shouldn’t. It’s boiling behind her teeth

He laughs, trembling and black. “I may make a poor confessor, El.”

“I have no wish for a good one. You need not even speak. I don’t want forgiveness or understanding. Nor am I doing this because I wish to rob you of your right to hate me. Lest you assume that.” She sighs and pulls up a chair, settling a foot closer than last time. She knows just how little play he has by now, after all. “But yes. When I’m done, I’ll. Give you that release.”

He stills in his chains, eye searching her face, wary. He doesn’t believe her, of course. She supposes he’d have little reason to, but there’s not much she can do about that.

“I.” She swallows. “I suppose I should start with.” She forces a deep breath. This—won’t be easy. Yet the mad desire to speak, even a little, still burns in her. She’d wanted to tell Byleth. Instead—well, perhaps this absurdity is what she deserves. “With the Insurrection of the Seven, and my family.”

* * *

Edelgard tells him…everything. The dungeons, the deaths, Thales, what she knows of the Tragedy, the threat the Agarthans pose, the true nature of Rhea and the Church, the changes she intends to bring to Fódlan, the reasons why they must be done under one flag, everything. Every link in the chain that had led her from the irrelevant child she’d been to the Battle of Garreg Mach. It’s—terrifying, at times. More than she expected. She’s never done anything, _anything_ like this, and by the end, it’s pouring from her in vomitous detail as she speaks in an almost hypnotic calm.

Dimitri listens in utter silence. His eye is open; he breathes; at times, when some particularly mind-bending or relevant piece falls into place, he lets out a raw and shuddering sigh.

“Thales will die. I owe him revenge as well. Cornelia will die. I cannot expect Faerghus to take the transition well, but I will not continue her tyrannical ways. And I’d imagine the great reserves from Grondor will aid the food shortages. In the long run, Faerghus could flourish with support from the south. I’ll do my best to address the situation with Duscur fairly, though I admit I don’t yet have a plan of action, as I don’t know many details.”

For the first time in what feels like eternity, she hesitates. None of this matters. He will die. Yet even here, there are things she dares not put into words. As if saying it would make it real.

“I must act quickly,” she hedges. The closest she would ever come to admitting what truly hangs over her in the end. “And I must not merely break the systems that are oppressing Fódlan, but build new ones that will give the people freedom to live and grow. That will survive me, and not merely crumble into the same entrenched corruption. That’s the only point to all of this. The only point there could be.”

Dimitri gives another one of those raw, shuddering sighs. She can’t read his expression. She doesn’t particularly try to. Just looks at her small hands, numb.

“That’s. All.” She lifts her chin. “I’m done.”

And she’d promised.

At least the numbness lingers.

She lifts her hands, wordless, and wraps then around the thick base of his neck, nudging the yoke up a little so she has room. A poor angle, really. It would be better to get a blood choke higher on his throat, easing him out faster and gentler than crushing his windpipe. But she’d—she’d promised, and she can’t reach, and all Hubert’s murder lessons have fallen out of her battered brain…

He sags, tips his head back a little, mouth falling open. His eye drifts half-closed.

She squeezes. Listens to his breathing grow strained.

“I,” he whispers, barely audible. Licks his lips. “I loved you. I never forgot.”

She grits her teeth, feeling like he’s run her through. “Dimitri. Please. If you put me off, I’ll have Hubert do it, but that means you’ll have to wait, and I’ve kept you waiting long enough.”

“It’s just. That’s. Why I hated you so much.” His brow furrows. His slack hands twitch a little in midair, pinned by his yoke. “El. You wanted to be known. So do I.”

Her hands loosen in spite of herself.

It’s quiet enough that she can hear the soft clink of the chain. That spasm in his shoulder is getting worse. Unthinking, she slips a hand under the loop of that thick arm, feels the muscle clenching rock-hard under the skin, searches for the root of it.

His face crumples, and he makes a small wet noise and says, “Please. Don’t.”

She goes still, fingers still resting on a thick knot between shoulder and ribs. “Why?”

He’s turned his face away from her as much as he can, jawline of his muzzle scraping against the yoke. “It’s…a waste. Kindness. Your kindness. I don’t need it.”

“Nonsense,” Edelgard says, and pushes. Uses her other hand to try to smooth out the length of the cramp. It’s—hard, since he can’t lower his arm, and it can’t exactly be painless, but he takes it with only labored breathing, still trying to hide his face. “I’ll allow that kindness from myself is an imposition, but we both know I’m the villain of this story, not you.”

One thin groan as the muscle spasms harder, finally stretches under her palm. That hand shakes. “Duscur,” he says after a moment, strained. “It’s…F-father was…” She’s on his blind side, so she can only guess from the way the scar wrinkles that he’s squeezing his eye shut, flinching. “What does it matter, Father? I am dead. I’ll be there soon. Let me…”

“How long has that been going on?” Edelgard asks. “The hallucinations.”

Dimitri jerks, hard, undoing all her work in an instant as his arm strains against the yoke. The grain of his muscle feels like gravel. Well. She’s not much better, is she? “They’re—they’re not—the ghosts—” He falls silent, face twisted, mouth working without breath.

“Look at me, Dimitri.” She puts an edge on it. She’d have questioned the wisdom of that an hour ago, or a year ago, however long she’s been in here, but that’s all gone out the window now, hasn’t it?

His eye snaps open and locks with hers, and the noise he makes is wretched.

“If they’re hallucinations, you’ll be free of them. If they’re ghosts, you’ll be joining them. Regardless. How long?”

“Since…they died. Quieter sometimes. At school. Before…” He blinks once, owlish, eye wet, and says, like it’s an obvious fact, “I should have died with them.”

Edelgard feels an aching stab of—anger, maybe.

“I always knew that,” he plows on. “My first failure. If I’d gotten that right…”

She feels her nails digging into her palm. “You’d be dead, and nothing else would change. It’s—arbitrary who survives, Dimitri. It’s random, and that’s unmanageable, and we make of it—”

She stops herself. Cold comfort now, to tell him that surviving means he can take his life and do something about what happened. He’d tried, misguided but earnest. He’d failed, so utterly that it’s chilling to contemplate.

“Tell me about Duscur,” she says, hoping that it all fades into numbness again and she can strangle him when he’s done and go to her stupid meeting in a few hours and not miss this part of her soul _too_ much.

“S…top that,” he whispers, barely audible.

“Stop what,” she says, and then winces. Her voice. She can barely keep her dominance from leaking. Damn it. Even she can understand how hard that must be for his few remaining shreds of pride. Some idiot part of her heart wants to squeeze him close until she drowns out those spiteful voices, but. But. That won’t be allowed to happen.

Instead she brushes the hair out of his eye, sweat-plastered to his forehead.

Dimitri whines, thin, and goes rabbit-still.

“Duscur,” she says, with as little force as she can.

His gaze slides sideways.

It pours from him in little bursts, a disjointed litany of horrors. Edelgard feels her blood chill. She’d known about the punitive annexation, of course, everyone had, but the details—well, perhaps it should have been obvious. Faerghan barbarians, consciences liberated by righteous vengeance and the church-fostered belief that those outside Fódlan weren’t children of their goddess. No wonder Dedue had been such an impenetrable wall at school.

“Why were you there, Dimitri? During the annexation?” It’s perhaps a cruel question, but she can’t help but wonder if it was simply the done thing up there, to take their half-grown prince along to their genocide.

“I…took a horse and rode.” He’s still incalculably distant. “I wasn’t supposed to be. Nobody would believe me, and I had to try to find out, I didn’t even realize what the soldiers were there for until they started…” His voice stops on a croak. “There was a boy my age, screaming, they’d killed the rest of his family, I flung myself on him so they wouldn’t—it was the only thing I could do. Nobody would believe me. I was nothing. If I hadn’t been able to do that much, I don’t know how I could have suffered myself to live. That atrocity in my name…”

That must have been Dedue, she thinks. Dedue who’s almost certainly dead. Fallen, she suspects, to protect him, to open his path. She’s contemplated Hubert dying like that—she can’t not, he’s said he would, he’s forced her to. It had—not been pleasant. “Who in Faerghus was responsible? Was it unilateral?”

“None…fought it. But Count Rowe, the Viscount Kleiman who claimed the land to advance himself.” Their names are growls, and he all but vibrates with rage in his chains. “It was their soldiers. Their massacre. I will find proof, drag their crimes into the light of truth and trial, and burn them alive in the Court of Lions. Restore Duscur’s freedom and return the land we stole, even if there’s no…there’s no blood money in the world that can…there’s no way to…” She can _see_ his situation sink back in, black resignation smothering everything drop by drop, until he just hangs limp with a small broken noise. “So I’d sworn. Meaningless.”

“Dimitri,” she starts, if only to pull his focus on her.

He twitches. “Galatea and Gautier sent soldiers, but I don’t know how much they…how much they…it was Rufus’ order.” One final flicker of rage before even that goes out. “He didn’t consult me. I was nothing. I…I don’t know much Rodrigue knew. He withdrew. Mourning. His people were busy helping power transition to Rufus, the Shield’s work.”

She allows herself a bitter huff. She would admit she’d nursed a bit of envy for a prince of a line still honored by his country as a monarch, not blatantly reduced to a puppet, but at least as an uncrowned child, that envy was apparently misplaced. And it would be simpler if the corruption was in her enemies, would it not, instead of Cornelia’s bootlickers? Fraldarius, Charon, the holiest iron knights of the East, wearing the hypocrisy and shame of disobeying their precious prince for a little baby-murder and ore? No, that would be too satisfying to ask for. Well, she had already intended to keep Rowe and his ilk on short leashes: a ready traitor for fear and money can just as easily be bought by another.

“Did you kill Rufus?” she asks quietly, because it’s just occurred to her that this actually raises the question. “Not that I care if you did, to be clear, that’s not why I’m asking.”

He sways a little, clinking, then looks her square in the eye, blinking in bewilderment. “I…don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t remember it. Cornelia…showed me the body. All crushed in big hands.” Big hands twitching in his stocks. “I want to know what’s true.” It’s—raw simplicity. He’s almost childishly open. “I didn’t see any Duscuri when Father and the rest died. I met with Rufus, just quick greetings, and went to bed, and woke up when they arrested me. I…think that’s true? But I’m mad. Everybody knows that now.”

Edelgard has to hold very still for a moment as she digests that. “The first is definitely true,” she says, quiet and firm. “The second…I cannot guarantee, but it seems quite likely to me. In what little the Agarthans deigned to tell me of their plan to secure Faerghus, they mentioned removing Rufus. Given their shapeshifting, it would be trivial for Cornelia to stage that sight. Pettily sadistic, but trivial, and she has bad hobbies.”

An understatement. The empty socket of Dimitri’s right eye twitches as he laughs, once, light and hollow. “She should take up sewing. I did. It was difficult, but quite rewarding.”

“She’d probably sew skin,” Edelgard says with a sigh.

“Oh, probably.”

“What’s the situation now?”

“I…” His face crumples a little, bitter shame. “Don’t know. Not…details. Some survived, fled or kept for labor. There was a rebellion, when we were at Garreg Mach, angry. Hopeless. The Professor and I spared as many as we could. Took them out of the fight before my own soldiers got there. They did not trust us. Since Cornelia…she wouldn’t rein in Kleiman. No chance.”

“Clearly not.” Edelgard feels her lips thin. She’s already laid her convictions bare. No reason to stop now. “I shall. When I can assume full control of the situation. It is not my intent to rule through terror.”

“A gulf wider than the ocean,” Dimitri says slowly, “lies between what we intend and what we do.”

There’s no anger left in it. Just a simple truth. Edelgard feels her blood prickle, defensive, then forces herself to consider it. Closes her eyes for a long moment in mute acceptance. Regathers herself. “Are there…other things you wish to tell me?”

He watches her for a time, utterly blank. “I…” He stops, going still, like he’s cut himself off from whatever he’d been trying to say. “It doesn’t matter. No.”

“Do you still,” Edelgard starts, fingers resting lightly at the base of his throat. “Want me to.”

Dimitri hangs there in one of those long, long silences. Eye mostly closed. Lips moving faintly. At last, very small, he says, “Let me…see the sun. Please.”

She isn’t sure whether the _please_ is for her or for whatever twisted version of his father is shouting in his ear to hurry up and die. She almost hopes it’s the second, because she’d be happy to hear that soft plea for her every night forever, and they really are a wretched pair of little monsters, aren’t they?

“I’ll have to move you. We’re deep within the palace.” She contemplates his stocks, muzzy. “If we let you up, will you try to kill yourself again? Or me?”

He hesitates on that for a long moment, and then, in weary and abject surrender, lets his head slump. “No.”

Something flip-flops quietly in her belly. She isn’t sure what. It’s a strange feeling, that he’d trust her with his death, after all this. “I’ll hold you to that, then.”

* * *

Hubert, of course, is the only one standing at the door when she knocks to be let out, tall and inscrutable. He is naturally dubious, and suggests a secure inner room with a barred window. Edelgard points out that the eastern roof could be easily cordoned; she’s had private meetings there before. Dimitri will remain shackled; that’s not in doubt.

The doctor, banished down the hall to where he couldn’t hear anything from the cell, insists upon a checkup. The little team invades, swirls around Dimitri’s withdrawn silence. He allows a healing spell upon his hard-bitten lips, and even meekly takes a long drink of water through a straw with a tremor of relief. The doctor seems optimistic about his head. Edelgard unlocks the stocks holding his ankles, and Hubert replaces them with a heavy hobble-chain, just long enough to let him climb stairs. The yoke remains, released from the ceiling and floor, with two chains left on, the front corners, to be handed to Edelgard.

It takes Dimitri three tries to rise, with the hesitant support of the doctor, and he finally shuffles forward on Edelgard’s lead, hobble clanking. He’s exhausted, visibly; even with his strength, the yoke is a burden.

“We could find a wheeled chair,” the doctor suggest hesitant. “It’s a long way to the roof. There’s still stairs, but it would…”

Dimitri shakes his head, muzzle tapping against his yoke. “No. Let me walk.”

He walks. It’s slow, but that gives Hubert ample time to secure the route, make sure that only his handpicked staff sees the officially-dead hot-ticket political prisoner shambling through the palace. The portrait hall is an easy route to clear—far easier than the early bustle near the kitchens—so generations of Hresvelgs gaze down as they pass.

There’s a tug on the chain in Edelgard’s hands, and she realizes Dimitri’s clanking gait has halted.

Anselma von Arundel looks down at them from her consort-betrothal oil portrait, dark eyes piercing, lips curled in the coy smile that the painter pulled out of her usual gravitas.

“She…really did look like you,” Dimitri murmurs.

“I’ve never seen it much,” Edelgard admits. “Especially since my hair turned. And I got the Hresvelg eyes and nose. Most of us did.”

Hubert, by the door, shifts, studying them both like he’s trying to decode their hearts.

“It’s in your cheeks. Your chin, a little.” Dimitri falls silent, scanning the walls. There, high up, is the one Father had done of all the little princesses, when Edelgard was no more than five. The sittings had been a trial, would have been far worse without Alisa holding her hand. The artist, one of her favorites, had caught the spark in her eyes, the way she framed her littler sisters under her arms.

Dimitri’s hand twitches in his yoke, once, like he wants to run his fingers over the nameplate. It isn’t far from there, she thinks, for him to notice the pastoral of the little princes with hunting hounds. Or the grand portrait of the whole family, painted when she was a babe in her mother’s arms.

“The sun will be rising soon,” Hubert says into the ringing silence.

Dimitri doesn’t give it voice, but Edelgard imagines she can read his lips behind the muzzle. _You too shall be avenged._

He turns with the click-clack of his hobble, and the lead goes slack in her hand once more as he follows her through the door.

* * *

The view from the roof is stunning. It faces the inland sprawl of the city, the mosaic of noble manses leading into the foothills of the mountains, and those mountains bracket the sunrise. It’s the faint, dew-chilled early light of dawn when they finally come to the roof, to Edelgard’s bleary surprise. She usually has a fine sense of time, but this night has shattered it. She wasn’t sure whether she’d find the moon high or the sun.

She doesn’t let him anywhere close to the edge, and Dimitri doesn’t test her grip on his leash, just stands wordless under the open sky, face somewhere between pain and rapture. Eventually, with a slow groan, he sits on the tiled flat of the roof. She follows suit, keeping a loose hold on his chains, more out of idle habit than of true fear that he’d test them at this point.

“I could send you into exile,” she says, inane, into the silence of the early dawn. “Or—or whatever you’d wish to do that did not interfere with my plans. We could—this place isn’t as secure—enact our revenges together, when the time comes. You don’t.” She bites her lip. “Death is not the only path left for you.”

He’s quiet for a time, far too tired for anger, and then says, thickly, “Would you say the same to yourself? If you sat in my chains with all your ambitions thwarted?”

She lets out a breath and closes her eyes. “I suppose not.”

“Why do you keep trying to save me?”

She studies him, wordless. He’s propped his yoke against a convenient carved ridge on one of the many roof ornaments, supporting himself so he can watch the sky. His head’s tipped back as far as he can, his face slack. Take away the heavy bonds and the worn-thin mien and he’d almost look like a schoolboy basking in Garreg Mach’s cloister.

“To soothe your conscience?” he murmurs, prompting. “Prove something to yourself? Keep me as a pet, a puppet?”

In the time that she chews on that, the sparrows of Enbarr start chirping out their morning song as the rising light turns white.

“You’re not wrong about my conscience,” she says, at last, voice very small. “In part. It also…it pains me. To see somebody in your state. Especially when they’re somebody I.” She squeezes her hands together, forces the words out. “Cared for.” And she huffs. “I hadn’t thought of myself as a masochist before this.”

“It’s a good way to survive, I suppose,” Dimitri murmurs, aimless. “There’s nothing but pain and cruelty in life.”

“I can make it better. I have to.”

“I…wanted to. Once.” He stares into the slowly-coloring sky, wistful. “To burn out cruelty and corruption. Make Faerghus a country where none need starve. Those who are wronged could find true justice. Everyone could have a voice.”

“Idealistic,” Edelgard murmurs.

“Like you can talk.” There’s no anger in it. Only wry resignation. “Ruthlessness for its own sake doesn’t magically make you more pragmatic.”

More likely to succeed, Edelgard thinks, and bites it back. That’s needlessly cruel. In some kinder world, where her war wasn’t needed, perhaps he wouldn’t have been hopeless as a king after all. A little fragile, perhaps. Not quite the callous fool she’d taken him for, blind to the flaws in his little knight’s world.

The sun rises in silence, late and bright between the mountains in a glowing wash of color, spreading gold over Enbarr’s glitter as the city comes to life. Dimitri’s breathing slows, deep and steady. She’d think he was dozing except for his upturned eye, watching the clouds scud and the seagulls wheel.

Edelgard looks down at her hands, turns over heavy links of chain, and for the third time that night, braces herself to kill him.

He shifts his yoke with a grunt, slides carefully to one side to lie sprawled on the hard tile with a groan of relief. It pulls the ends of the chains out of her hands, and she lets them go without fuss. He slides his long legs up, bare toes curling in the sun, and rolls his knees from side to side, easing his back. His arms are still locked in, his neck shoved up by the yoke at an awkward angle as he lies there. She can see the spasm still rolling occasionally through that shoulder.

“They’re quieter during the day,” he murmurs, out of nowhere.

“Good,” she says, because she has no idea what else to say. “At least there is some relief. They do not seem to be kind to you.”

He gives a vague shrug, scraping the yoke against the ground. “They’re right.”

Edelgard clenches one fist, pulls herself slowly to her feet, and circles his prone body. She’s still barefoot herself, in her nightgown, hair all a mess in the rising sea breeze. She doesn’t care. Hell, in a few hours she’s going to have to pull herself together for that logistics meeting, and now it feels like the world is a lifetime away and there’s nothing but the morning sunlight and Dimitri’s life in her hands.

She doesn’t want it to stop.

She’ll have to mark a proper place to bury him, she supposes. Once matters are settled in Faerghus, she can have him disinterred and transferred to the royal crypt, to at least be with his family in the end, but she doesn’t trust Cornelia as far as she can throw an entire demonic beast. She doesn’t know if the Agarthans can do something twisted with a corpse, but she’s not taking that chance with Dimitri.

The thought scatters on the sea breeze. She’s bone tired, yet feels more awake than she’s ever been, nakedly alive. She stares down at Dimitri like she can burn him into existence.

He watches her half-lidded. Blows out a breath and closes his eye.

She lifts one bare foot, rests it high on his chest, heel on the top of his sternum, toes just under the yoke, because she doesn’t know if she can bear watching his face up close.

“Poetic, El,” he murmurs, accepting.

She leans her weight on him, digs toes into the base of his throat, and somewhere through all her frayed focus, wonders dimly if she even _can_ kill him like this. He could throw her off, certainly, even shackled and exhausted. But he only jerks, struggles vaguely under her with a barely-voiced moan—and heat lances through her belly. She rocks her weight back and briefly, vividly, wants to flay all her own skin off, because there are appropriate times for her dominance to surge all the way down to her clit, and then there’s _this_.

He gasps for air, open-throated.

She rocks her weight forward.

His hands twitch in their prison. Fist. His face crumples and his mouth hangs open. Muscles ripple under thin linen as he strains against the yoke.

“Goddess,” she whispers. “Some part of you is still fighting to live.”

She rocks back, and he straight-up sobs, tries to turn his face away.

“Dimitri,” she says, as pleading as she’d ever allow herself. “Are you sure? Are you truly…”

She trails off, because he cracks on another sob, sandpaper-rough. His chest heaves under her heel. He barely has tears left in him, and yet he cries, shaking with some emotion she could not even begin to name.

“No,” he croaks at last, then laughs and sobs in one. “No. My life is nothing. But this…I’m happy.”

She stares down at him. Wounded, dehydrated, a day without food, a night without sleep, fighting off a concussion, wrists rubbed raw, shoulder spasming, muzzled, yoked, hobbled, and flat on his back under her heel, weeping. “Why,” she manages. “Because you might die?”

Another laugh, vague and wet, and a faint smile like she’s never seen. “No. Goddess help me. That’s the idiot thing. I just feel better than I have in years.”

Edelgard shifts her foot just a little, bare toes tracing the heated hollow of his throat. “You have alarmingly low standards.” She bites her lip. “I thought you didn’t deserve even the smallest kindness.”

“I don’t.” His smile’s a little lopsided. “I know. I just. Gave up.”

Heat and cold chase themselves through her veins, and she gives into gravity. Despite his sheer size, his waist is narrow from two hard years, and she straddles him, feeling the heat burning off his rangy body even through his shirt. He makes a breathless noise and shakes under her, and still, _still_ doesn’t throw her off. She braces her hands on the yoke so she can look him in the face, close as she dares.

There’s something like raw, childish wonder there. And despair, always.

For a man so set on dying, the human will to live must be a terrifying discovery. It had been for her, all those years ago, a sobbing child in Hubert’s arms.

She isn’t sure what to say for a time, as he keeps breathing under her, but it would be absurd not to point it out at this point. “You’re a submissive.”

He flinches—full-body, she can _feel_ it, and tries yet again to hide his face. “Don’t…make this about that,” he says, shaky.

“Are we going to keep pretending it isn’t, at least in some small part? Hell, Dimitri, have you ever been under, or have you starved yourself of that too?”

“I was the prince,” he says, and it sits like a rock in his throat. “I _couldn’t_.” He scoffs, once, wretched. “Perhaps I was born to fail, in the end.”

“There was nobody in private?” she asks, as gently as she can, because she’s not going to engage with _that_.

“Dedue.” His voice breaks on the name. “A few times. When we were little, and in so much pain. Before he…closed himself off to me.” He closes his eye, drifts with a sob. “It was…almost nothing. I put my head on his knee. But it was the world.”

It takes her a few moments to put together when this must have been, given everything he’d said about Duscur. Five or six years starved. Through all the surging needs of adolescence. No wonder he’s so wretched. Damn it, Dimitri, she thinks, and does not voice it, and picks his hair back out of his eye as gently as she can. Wipes his tears with her sleeve, even if she can’t do much about the caked-on mess of snot and blood under the muzzle.

He makes a soft, pained noise at the gentleness, and shakes under her, battered gold in the brightening morning.

“This is a terrible idea,” Edelgard whispers, even as she digs fingers into his chest and feels his breath catch and speed.

“So is living.” He laughs, soft and scattered. “All my ideas are terrible. You know that.” He finally manages to open his eye again, meeting her gaze with a faint smile. “Don’t pretend you’ll want to kill me after this, El,” he says, almost kindly.

“No,” she admits, a little wretched. “I suppose I…I could have Hubert…”

“No.” He’s still and quiet for a moment, then one of those rare threads of royal firmness creeps into his voice. “I have one condition. My death is my own. Never keep me on suicide watch again, or have me bound like that. Swear it.”

Her scalp prickles. “Condition for what?”

“Keeping me a little longer,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Soothing your conscience. Swear it.”

She stops breathing for a moment, and presses her palm over his heart. “I will protect my own life and those of my people. Otherwise, your death is your own. I swear it.”

“And if I do take it,” he says, “forgive yourself.”

She makes a choked noise, chilled. “You of all people should know that’s a difficult request, Dimitri.”

“You’re stronger than me. Swear it.”

“Am I?” She bites her lip. “I might have thrown myself off the roof by now if I were you.”

“It’s tempting.” His tongue wets his dry, barely-healed lips. “Yet it feels like a greater weakness to live. To want…to want another sip of water. The way it soothed my throat. Sun on my skin. The way you…touched me. Such a wretched thing to want. Swear it, El.”

“To me, that’s strength.” She reaches over the ridge of the yoke to brush his hair back, tug her fingers lightly through it—sweaty, tangled, but at least washed since they’d dragged him in from the wilderness. “Living’s the hardest part. Dimitri. I don’t even know what you’re asking. What you’re after. I can’t afford to let you kill me. Even if you live in chains.”

His hand twitches, curls towards her. “I…don’t know either. Maybe by nightfall I’ll do as Father wishes, one way or the other. But. Swear it.”

She swallows hard and threads her fingers between his. “To the best of my ability. I swear it.”

He could break every one of her fingers, she realizes, a little late, but he only folds his hand around hers, stiff and clumsy and excruciatingly careful.

“I suspect,” she goes on, after a tentative pause, “that by nightfall you’ll mostly be sleeping, once the doctor allows it.”

He makes a vague rumble. “Sleep is. Hard.”

“Ah.” His palm and the undersides of his fingers, she realizes, are rough. Not only calluses, though those are thick and heavy, but old scars? They’re stiff and shiny. “I get a lot of nightmares too.”

“They…don’t let me sleep much.” It’s vividly clear what he means, the way he says _they._ “When I do, they stay with me.”

“Dimitri,” she starts, frowning.

His hand tightens a little. “Don’t speak to me of them. Not now. Please.”

Given, she considers, that from his perspective, his dead father might be watching him surrender to his greatest enemy and the conqueror of his country—yes, quite reasonable, she wouldn’t want that kind of audience either.

He stares quietly up at the bright blue sky—free, she hopes, of hallucinations.

She leans over him, still with her hand in his, and kisses his forehead.

“El,” he croaks, and then falls silent, breath coming fast and shallow.

She threads his other hand through his hair, wanders over the unbandaged parts of his skull. Slides under, around the straps of the muzzle, to cradle the base of his skull, take some of the weight off the no-doubt uncomfortable ridge of the yoke, and he makes soft noises and shakes, eye fluttering closed, leaning into his hand.

His throat would be bared if it wasn’t locked in a slab of steel.

Edelgard squeezes her thighs around his ribs, riding the sudden rush of raw desire. The need’s boiling off him. She can _feel_ it. The yoke’s in the _way_ , she thinks dimly, but it doesn’t even occur to her to take it off—she’d have to find Hubert for the key, ridiculous, and he’s hers, she’s not letting him go that easily—she’ll have to get him a proper collar, agarthium so he can’t tear it, molded to his throat—

“Saints,” he breathes, full-body trembling. Big bare feet scrabble on the tile, chain clattering. His hand squirms in hers, and she disentangles herself, folds her palm over the back of his as he digs his nails white-knuckled into his skin.

“What are you afraid of?” Her hair, loose and tangled, patters around his face, framing him.

He shakes his head, tiny and reflexive, eye searching hers.

“Tell me,” she says, letting power rise in her voice. She can see it hit him like a blow, raw and on the edge and starving as he is.

“This,” he whispers, fumbling. “Letting this…letting myself…with _you._ I’ve never—never felt anything like this.”

Not since he was a freshly wounded child. She bites her lip, pushes her hips back, and finds hard heat stirring against her ass.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he bites out, desperate, almost a sob, and she moves one hand, clutches at his defenseless chest.

“Tell me. If you want it. _Tell_ me.”

“Why not just take it?” His laugh is brittle, half sob.

She blinks, holds a fistful of his shirt. “I don’t want to.”

“Of course not.” He gives some vague movement of his head, like he wants to be closer to her, but can’t. “You want it offered. So contrary, El.”

“Well. I don’t think I ever made any pretense of not being contrary.” Hubert is not going to be _walking_ tonight if Dimitri closes her out after this. She roils with need, just barely keeps herself from taking a fistful of overgrown hair. “Call my country’s name if you need me to stop.”

Dimitri lets out a shaky breath.

“I mean it, Dimitri.” She does go for the hair then, barely gentle. “And I _will_ stop, you have my word. Do you understand me?”

“Y-yes.” He pants, shallow. “Goddess. I’m disgusting. For wanting this.”

“If you’re fishing for degradation, don’t.” She tightens her grip. At least there’s that semblance of sanity laid down. “You seem quite brave to me right now. Reckless, perhaps. Yes, I know that makes two of us.”

“Hhaahhh.” His focus hazes, and he arches under her as she pulls, then gives a broken noise of pleasure. His cheeks pink around the straps of his muzzle. “I. Wasn’t fishing. I just…it’s true.”

She nods. “You’re fighting yourself, yes?” She rearranges, prying her hand out of his shirt so she can lean on his chest and hold his head, smoothing her thumb over his temple. No turning his face away. Not for him. Not even the few inches that his bonds allow.

He makes a broken noise and squeezes his eye shut.

“Look at me,” she says, soft and absolute.

He does, barely hesitating, barely breathing.

“This isn’t about what you deserve. None of this is. It’s about…” She fumbles, tracing his eyebrow with her thumb, watching the way the thick little hairs part, the way they catch the light. The bright blue of his eye hasn’t changed. She’d like to rip out Cornelia’s, she thinks idly. Perhaps they could share. “Existing,” she attempts at last.

His hands strain, reaching for her, and for a moment, he’s utterly silent, eye wide and wet. He’s sliding, she thinks. Sliding under. His face relaxes.

“Breathe,” she says quietly.

He sucks air, a little shaky and desperate.

“Hold it,” she says, at the peak of his inhalation, and he freezes, brow furrowing, and yet obeys. Two seconds. “Breathe out as slow as you can manage.”

It’s jagged. She feels his chest heave a little as he bottoms out, struggling like he had under her foot.

“In through your nose. A little slower. Deep. Hold it. Now out through your mouth, as slow as you can, but smooth.” She talks him through the cycle five, six more times. Something Hubert had taught her years ago, a way to trick her body into calming itself. She plays with his hair, traces his temples, the curves of his flushing ears, as he breathes dutifully, face going slack.

“Now,” she says, and bends to kiss his forehead. “Breathe normally. Tell me how your fight is going.”

His breathing levels out, a little unsteady without her words, but slower. His lips move faintly. He opens his eye, unsure, searching her face.

“There you are,” she murmurs, and catch the straps of the muzzle, holding him snug.

“Take me.” It’s quiet, earnest. “For now. Please.”

She’d never realized one word could feel like it was wrapped around her heart and her cunt at once, pulling. She forces air into her lungs, realizes she’s got two handfuls of his hair and his eye’s going hazy, and somewhere in her swirl of nightgown, she’s grinding on his stomach. She wants to kiss him until his lips are red—from _her_ , not his own self-flagellation—paint every inch of his neck with bruises, but she can’t—she can’t—

She kisses his temple two, three, four times, and bites his ear in a rush, and hisses, “yes, fuck yes, Dimitri, you’re so good.”

He shivers full-body, makes a raw noise like she’s fucked him—oh, she probably has, and she wants to spread his mind open and take him like that again and again, and she settles for shoving his shirt up, baring the spread of his chest. He’s warm all over, ruddy down his sternum, and she isn’t sure whether it’s a blush or left from her heel. His nipples are flat, tightening; a light touch gets little response, but a hard pinch makes him groan, raw with pleasure and fear.

“El—do you—what should I—”

“Ssshhh.” She smooths a hand over his chest, squeezes both his nipples to make him groan again. “You should take what I’m giving you. Feel the sun on your skin. The breeze. My hands. The pleasure in your body. Find relief, and enjoy it as much as you are able.”

He fumbles, voice ragged, and the ruddiness spreads—it _is_ a blush, and Edelgard drags nails over it and realizes she’s smiling. “What,” Dimitri fumbles, “about you?”

Her chest wrenches. Even with everything, _that’s_ his first thought? If she needed any more proof that there was no divinity controlling fate, it’s the fact that this man was so systematically denied his supposedly goddess-given nature. “I’ll decide that,” she says, as gently as she can. “You know what I wish you to do. But this…you are so, so good right now. You bring me more pleasure than I can find words for.”

“Oh,” Dimitri breathes, stunned into stillness. A long, full-body shiver as she scoots down, kissing his chest. Relaxing again on a moan as she presses teeth into a swell of muscle. “Oh, goddess.” It’s faint, desperate. He’s—untouched, like this, he must be, given everything. She can’t imagine he’d ever offer this if Cornelia had violated him so; she reels, flattened, from the enormity of what he’s allowing. She frames the base of his ribs with both hands, his flat stomach, toys with the waistband of his pants, and he shakes, makes little sounds of need.

His thigh is corded muscle against her cunt, and she’s burning wet, and she’s done thinking. It’s almost terrifying. “Lift your hips,” she says, low and dangerous, and some part of that sweet pliant boy who’d let her drag him through the market streets isn’t dead, because he obeys without hesitation, even shaking, lets her shimmy his pants and smalls down to his ankles without fuss.

“El,” he chokes. He’s hard, stomach fluttering with nerves. His cock’s flushed red, pleasantly large, bare-headed—right, she’d heard some Faerghans mutilate their children so. She curls her palm along it, one slow stroke, savoring the pulsing heat, the velvet, the strange smooth baldness of the tip. His breath rattles in his lungs even as he squirms, an uncertain thrust into her hand.

“Breathe,” she says. “Put your feet flat on the floor.” She slides a palm down his bare thigh, guiding him. “Now let your knees fall open. Spread yourself for me.”

The flush on his chest deepens. His cock twitches. And he obeys.

“Good,” she breathes. “My sweet boy.” Here—here she can mark her claim. She sprawls down on him to sink teeth into the tender skin of his inner thigh. He moans outright, voice turning ragged and heedless as the small pain drags him further under. “Tell me what you’re feeling,” she says, demanding, before switching sides to give that fresh red mark a partner.

“Y-you,” he blurts. “You’re marking me.” His voice cracks, like even that is almost too much. “You must be?” She digs a finger in over the first bruise, feels him quiver. “My…my whole body is hot. I feel like…like my mind is swimming. A warm lake on a summer day. It’s…it’s far away from me, but also I’m. Waking up from a dream. I don’t know how to…I’ve never felt anything like this.”

“You’re doing beautifully,” she murmurs, picking up her head with another fresh mark in her wake. He bruises so readily, bright against his pale skin. He shivers like a plucked string when she slides a hand around his balls, cradling them where they hang full and heavy in their place.

“Saints, El.” He can barely voice it. She _wants_ him, so earnestly she has to grit her teeth against a moan, and starts wrangling the billowing mess of her nightgown with her other hand, pawing it out of the way so her bare thighs are against his. He makes a beautifully broken sound at the touch of skin upon skin, and he’s so gloriously _warm_ —she wants to wrap him all around her like a blanket—she grinds against his naked thigh, savoring the drag of their hair and her slick. “Is—is that—you—” It’s stammering, uncertain.

“Yes. That’s what you’re doing to me.” She bites her lip against a growl, grinds harder until the pressure makes her ache, then reaches down to bury two fingers in herself, deep. It’s rougher, faster, than she usually goes, but she wants him, hard and twitching right there, while the blood still burns in their veins. She wants to latch onto him and dig her nails in and ride him until he gives her everything. “ _Fuck_ , Dimitri.” She spares him a few desultory strokes, slips the third finger into herself on the noise he makes as she rolls her palm over his head.

Not that he needs any more preparation. He’s desperate, a wretched lifetime of need caroling through his exhausted body. _She_ needs four fingers, at least, so he can wait, desperate or no, but even as he squirms breathless under her hand, he doesn’t close his knees. So beautifully obedient. She’d sit on his face if she could, but instead she grinds hard against the heel of her own hand, barely manages to turn whines of frustration into something less embarrassing, and presses her leg against his so hard that she shakes.

He makes some questioning noise as she rearranges, reaching down to catch him by the base and line him up, and that turns to barely verbal shock as he touches her. Chanting nonsense, her name, as she sinks down. He’s _big_ , enough that it stings, and the pain is like candy-sparks of energy through her transported mind. She hisses wild through the burn, drives her hips down against his. He doesn’t have quite the slide she’s used to—no cowl, she can feel the difference—heavy and blood-hot and so full she gasps like she’s been punched as he bottoms out, almost painfully deep—

“El,” he groans, back arching, all the muscles in his arms cording as he strains against his bonds. “You—you feel—let me—let me see you, _please_ …”

She drops down over him, moans open-mouthed as the angle makes her feel even fuller, and slides hands under those steel-wrought shoulders to dig her nails in hard. “Do you know what that does to me—put your knees back together now, Dimitri, dig your heels in, let me ride you.” She’s so irrationally annoyed at the muzzle, at his bloody mouth—biting his lips is _her_ business, he doesn’t have the right, she’d wrap him up with the softest of gags if he ever tries that again—and he’s too tall, she can only just hook her chin over the edge of the yoke and watch his face, eye on her adoring, flushed to his ears, all blown open and in awe.

Edelgard digs her heels into his thighs, manages to pry one set of nails out of his shoulder so she can rub her clit, and squeezes everything she can around him—hand, legs, cunt—he groans, white-knuckled, gathers himself enough to thrust up into her. “ _Fuck_ ,” she pants, because she can’t hold it back. “Yes. Good boy. Match me.”

He keens, wordless. Learns rhythm. Panting open-mouthed, still stunned, like he’ll never stop being utterly undone by her touch. Cracked moans of pleasure as she drags nails over all the bare skin of his chest she can reach—there’s a brand, she realizes, puckered and shiny near his heart, and she mashes her palm over it like she can wipe it from his skin.

“El,” he manages, cock twitching in her. “El, I…”

“Hold it,” she says, dominance like fire up her spine. “You _will_ come at my word. Not before.” It’s not a matter of whether he dares to or not, really. She has no interest in punishing his failure.

“I—I don’t know if I can—”

“You gave yourself to me.” She pushes down harder, drags him into a faster pace. The pressure’s almost unbearable, riding closer and closer to the edge. Her own voice rings in her ears. “I am your dominant, and you _cannot_ come until I say.”

She doesn’t know if it works like that. She doesn’t much care. His head sags back, eye half-closed, punched under. If the yoke wasn’t there, she’d take his throat in her teeth. But this, too, is good, locked in, helpless, all that power shackled under her. A warning quiver jolts through her core, wet and trembling. “Harder,” she hisses, and his hips buck like he’s a puppet on her string, driving up so fast that he bounces her with just his abs, and she shouts breathless. “Now! Dimitri. Now, come for me—”

She screams hard through clenched teeth, and somewhere in there his broken shout joins her, and it rattles through both their bones. The yoke cracks against tile. Her orgasm _lasts_ , lasts and lasts, waves rolling through her as she collapses over him, watery-weak in the wake of it. He whimpers, hands straining, as the last shocks make her twitch—right, he must be sensitive, poor dear.

“Oh, goddess,” he pants. “Oh, goddess.”

Edelgard slowly, slowly catches her breath. Her hand comes away from his chest with red stains under her nails, red spots framing the brand that disgusting creature had left on him. She starts to pull off, stops at the aching drag—hell, she’s going to be sore. He shivers, softening. His face is crumpling, and he’s trying to turn away, curl into himself, maybe—one side of his yoke lifts with a clatter of chain.

“Ssshh,” she says, and paws for the chain. “Ssshhh.” She pulls, dragging him up to sit, and envelopes him as best as she can. The yoke digs against her ribs, the muzzle’s a gnarl of wire between her breasts, and he makes a raw groan and butts his head against her, burrowing as close as he can. She wraps one arm around his shoulders and the other around his head and holds.

There are no tears left in him. He cries still, in what she can only hope is relief, into her crumpled nightgown. They sway, gently, in the rising sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lady Celestine von Pawsvelg, Edelgard's aging and bossy Hresvelgian Whisker, is walking the Three Houses multiverse from [another fic of mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24556966), because how could I resist?


	2. Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special guest star: Dorothea Arnault, the only sane person in this fic!

**II — TRUTH**

Edelgard genuinely isn’t sure how much time passes, there in the bright sun, playing with Dimitri’s messy hair, until she hears the deliberate and familiar tap of Hubert’s footsteps.

“Your Majesty,” he says, with due delicacy. “The seventh bell is near. It will take time to return him to his cell, and the doctor will need to examine him. Do you wish to cancel your morning audience?”

Edelgard draws a deep, careful breath. Dimitri twitches, trying to hide his face in shame—his clothes are still rucked aside. She smoothes a hand over his forehead. He’s been largely quiet, voice a worn-out rasp, lapsed into a deep and comfortable stillness. She’s eased out the worst of that shoulder cramp again, at least, and made sure he stayed conscious. “No,” she says. “It’s too important.”

Two hours or so. Enough to walk him back to his cell, put herself together, handle matters with Count Bergliez. The reality of her life settles oddly around her shoulders. “Dimitri,” she says, tapping his forehead gently. “Do you think you can walk?”

He stirs vaguely. They’ve propped themselves up against some bobble on the roof, and they’ve been tangled close, but she starts rearranging, letting him up. Her legs ache. “I,” he starts, a croak, and licks his lips, winces. “Yes. I want to.”

Getting him up is a bit of a production. Hubert produces a damp washcloth from the endless mystery of his cape, and Edelgard tidies Dimitri up without fuss, pulls his clothing into place. Dimitri takes it in exhausted silence, head turned away from Hubert, red with shame.

The journey back is slow, but there’s no pause in the portrait gallery. Dimitri shuffles quietly along as if it takes all his concentration just to stay on his feet. The distant morning bustle of the palace trickles through Edelgard’s brain, helps her pull herself into focus. Hubert looks as if he’d like to point out that she needn’t accompany them back, but has chosen not to bother. She’s bone-tired; even more, she feels like her brain and heart have been wrung dry, leaving only a deep and uncertain acceptance.

Hubert’s staff gathers in a little hustle. Dimitri twitches once as the heavy cell door unlocks, expression flattening. But he goes in without a fight. He takes more water through a straw. The doctor, roused and rumpled, examines Dimitri with care, wise enough not to draw attention to his newfound calm, and pronounces him in the clear, and Edelgard nearly sways with relief. If the swelling of his brain would kill him, after _all_ of that—well, there’s no need to worry anymore.

“I…may rest?” Dimitri asks, voice cracked.

The doctor nods. “I’ll wake you every four hours through the morning to check in, but that will be very brief. Otherwise you can sleep as much as you need.”

“Give me the key, Hubert,” Edelgard says.

His mouth thins. “Your Majesty.”

“He’ll get the worst crick, sleeping in that thing. And he’s had better chances to escape or kill than this.” She holds out her hand.

Hubert sighs, places the heavy key in her palm. “If you move on her,” he tells Dimitri, without inflection, “I’ll melt the flesh from your bones.”

“Of course,” Dimitri murmurs. “I’d ‘spect no less.” He’s starting to slur, he’s so tired, and Edelgard works the lock built into one side of the yoke, finally unhinges it. He’s got raw spots, though not as bad as the manacles from before. His arms slide down a notch, rock-stiff, and he groans, sagging.

Nobody comments as Edelgard helps him to bed, rubbing between his shoulders as he slowly manages to lower his arms, trembling from the pain. He curls weak and wordless, listing into sleep almost before his head finds the pillow.

“The tone of his skin worries me,” the doctor says quietly. “I’d like to use those new intravenous techniques to give him fluid as he sleeps.”

Edelgard nods. “Yes, thank you. And keep him sedated until tomorrow morning, assuming that’s advisable, so that he finds a normal cycle of sleeping and waking. His…mental condition degrades at night. I think it best he spends as many of his waking hours as lucid as possible.”

“I’ll do what I can.” The doctor studies him, clearly uncertain. “Something to soothe his muscles and pain as well. Do you think he’s likely to become violent again?”

“He’s…had an epiphany, perhaps. I don’t know if he’ll slide back into that state, though I can’t rule it out. Restrain him for treatment if you need to, and by all means keep the muzzle on. But let me make one thing clear.” She catches Hubert’s eye. “I’ve given him my word that he will not be kept on suicide watch. If he chooses to die, do not intervene. This includes avoiding restraints like those you used earlier. Protect your own safety, and make sure he can’t escape, but he should be free to act upon himself.”

“I understand,” Hubert says, and for once this morning sounds a little relieved.

“That’s.” The doctor sighs, jaw tightening. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, given his mental state, that could be seen as negligent.”

Edelgard sighs in turn. “I am aware. But I do not wish to break that promise. I believe…” She hesitates. “His will to live is very fragile, and I believe it hangs in part on the knowledge that he and he alone controls his death. Unless, of course, he turns on me.” She inclines her head to Hubert.

The doctor still seems dubious, but subsides.

“And I think,” she adds, “when it can be secured, we should find him a room with windows. The sun was good for him.”

Hubert’s gaze on her is considering, heavier than she’s used to, but all he says is, “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

* * *

Edelgard realizes, the moment she and Hubert retire to the imperial suite, that she is _starving_. Fortunately, breakfast awaits, heavy on the sweets. She almost doesn’t realize she’s grabbed a cookie until it’s in her mouth and the sugar hits her like the spark of life itself. Damn the metabolic strain of the two Crests.

More cookies disappear by the time Hubert sets down her morning briefing and her tea. At least chewing lets her hide the faint wince as she sits, saddle-sore. She rubs a hand over her forehead and reaches for file and cup. “Is there anything particularly surprising?”

“No emergencies.” Hubert settles, coffee in hand, with his own file. “Count Bergliez will come with his own documents, as usual. I’d suggest you prepare yourself with Hevring’s updates about food distribution.”

“Mm. Naturally.” She takes a deep idle sip of her morning tea, then pauses, blinking. There’s an herbal edge, astringent, that is radically out of place. “Hubert,” she says sharply.

“It’s my preparation. You are safe.”

She frowns down at it. “What is it?”

He— _Hubert_ —actually hesitates for a moment, then says, delicately, “A compound that will drastically lower the chance of pregnancy.”

Edelgard puts her cup very carefully back on the saucer, places her face flat upon the breakfast table, and wails. Once.

“As well as a stronger brew than usual, as you will need the stimulants,” he adds, slightly defensive.

She allows herself three more breaths of abject self-beration, and then lifts her head, dragging her face back into alignment by sheer will. “Thank you, Hubert,” she says gravely.

He’d spoiled her, after all. Even before they’d become intimate, for his own reasons, he’d sterilized himself. Being able to serve her without care for such matters was an unexpected bonus. So she’d not had to worry, nor regularly dose herself with such a brew.

“Please do finish the cup,” he says, inclining his head with a subtly genuine smile. “You’ll need another tonight as well. I’ll prepare it myself, of course.”

She gets a few more sips in, and a few more lines of briefing, before caving to the desire to cast her eyes down. “You must think me an idiot.”

“You are my Emperor. And my dominant. No matter as petty as this can change that.”

“Ah, so you _do_ think me an idiot.”

“I…” He’s silent for a moment, sipping his own bitter brew. “More importantly, I worry. Not for your future. I cannot discount the possibility that even a man so broken can sabotage our plans, but it seems unlikely, and I trust that you will not allow him to. But I cannot see this ending well. And if he had died during capture, it would not cause you nearly as much distress as it will when he succumbs to his madness.”

“And what if he doesn’t?” she asks, because there’s one eventuality yet to be accounted for.

It hangs between them for a long moment, heavy and out of place.

“If a man of his passion and drive,” Hubert says cautiously, “will truly remain your kept pet for the rest of his days, abandoning his country and his relevance to the world, I suppose that would be an unexpected delight. But you can’t imagine we could ever trust him as an ally, even as a lance in the shadows, never mind as a puppet-lord.”

“I’m not entirely sure we can rule out the first. If we can keep his presence hidden from those beyond ourselves, it could be a potent surprise. And it’s not as if we’d have to compel him. He’d jump at the chance, I can only assume.” There’s no real risk the Agarthans have ears in their inner sanctum, but they’ve gotten into the habit of such talk-arounds, particularly after their time in woefully unsecure Garreg Mach.

“Hypothetically. But, Your Majesty—”

“I’m not suggesting we hand him the keys to anything right away just because he says please very prettily. I’m not _that_ much of an idiot.” She sighs, chest tightening. “And I’m fully aware that everything about him is precarious. I’d simply like to be prepared for any way this might develop. And, yes, given.” She bites her lip, hoping her face isn’t as pink as it feels, and dutifully sips her tea of shame. “My…attachment to him. Any access or liberty he has, beyond our private relationship, medical care, humane treatment, and my promise about suicide watch, will be at your discretion and your evaluation.”

Hubert lets out a slow breath, the tightness in his face easing just a fraction, and bows his head. “Thank you.”

* * *

It’s a wearying day, but Edelgard does not let it disrupt her duties. She does, with some annoyance, carve out an hour in the afternoon for a quick nap. She doesn’t usually stoop to such things, even when her nightmares keep her up half the night, but she’s bone-weary in an entirely new way. Too many feelings, she supposes.

She wakes at a soft announcement of the time, head on Hubert’s knee as he reads quietly through a stack of intelligence, and for a moment, all she wants to do is stay there, burrowed in her duvet and the warmth of his body. But there is a late afternoon consult with some military mages, and a formal dinner, and nothing to be done about any of it.

In the late evening, she takes an update from the doctor, who at least seems to have gotten his own rest: Dimitri has slept, sedated or otherwise, precious fluid dripping into his veins, through most of the day. He’s eaten a little, remained docile, slept more. His condition is improving.

Edelgard goes to her imperial suite, puts Hubert between her knees and pulls his hair until she’s settled, and falls well and truly unconscious.

The next evening, though, after another day of imperial business that’s left her no time to think on Dimitri—almost to her relief—the doctor’s report is tempered. No improvement. He’s been ranting most of the day, violent, refusing food, and had toyed with strangling himself a few times.

Edelgard sighs and arranges to visit.

He’s still in the same cell. Fair enough—she can’t imagine securing a room with good natural light to hold a man with uncanny strength is an overnight job. The stocks are gone, replaced with the same heavy shackles they’d used when they’d first brought him in. Somebody’s jerry-rigged a way to take up the slack before the cell is opened, reeling him down to a hunched bundle of limbs on the floor, but it seems he has more play the rest of the time. Enough to reach his own chamberpot, leave smears of blood from his knuckles on the walls, and scratch deep furrows all up his own forearms.

The chains rattle. He rocks, jittering with rage.

“Dimitri,” she says, stepping in before him. He’s hunched on his knees, doubled over in a ball. “Dimitri,” she says again, louder, and his eye snaps up to her.

He strains, hard enough she almost fears he’ll burst the ratchet holding him back, and then sags, expressionless. “You.” One humorless huff of a laugh, and he closes his eye, almost resigned. “I suppose you would.”

“Me.” She crouches, studying him. “Dimitri, what are you doing to yourself?”

He hisses between his teeth, surly. He’s been biting himself again too. Edelgard swallows irrational annoyance, forces herself to take a deep breath.

“Are you dropping?” she asks, reaching for one of his arms, wondering how deep he’s managed to savage himself. “Or are you one of those submissives who needs—”

Wire jams against her arm, bruising hard. His bloody teeth are bared, snapping behind the cage that keeps them from her flesh, and she stiffens. Well. That would be why they keep him muzzled, yes.

“—Pain,” she finishes, keeping her voice level even as her throat tightens.

It was…foolish of her, she supposed, to think that one night could change anything.

Yet he isn’t raging at her again, not like he had before. He’s shaking with anger, eye wild, but she can’t assume it’s all for her this time. For himself, no doubt. She can hardly begrudge him that—she’s more than a little annoyed at herself too.

“Do you want me to take pain from you too?” he mutters, voice thick.

“Not when you’re like this,” she says, without giving it much thought, and frowns. “You were clear-minded yesterday morning. What came back to eat you?”

Dimitri looks up at her, eye upturned as he fights the limit of his floor-bound leash, and slowly shakes his head, incredulous. “You…really need to ask that? Of your war prize that let itself lick your boots?”

She opens her mouth, fighting a chill, but what can she even say?

“And the foolish thing is—I can’t even hate you anymore. Maybe I should. You’ve done so much that’s despicable. Yet with everything you told me—”

Edelgard stiffens, recoiling from him in disgust. “Don’t you _dare_ pity me.”

Dimitri blinks, stirs with a rattle of chains. “Why not? You pity me. I’d be dead if you didn’t. Are you that much of a hypocrite, El?”

“I don’t,” she hisses, reflexive, and stands. Whatever her heart is doing, it’s far more complicated than mere pity—isn’t it? “I had you treated kindly because I’m not a barbarian. That’s all.”

He laughs, black and bitter, dropping his gaze—he’s chained close enough to the floor that it’s hard for him to even look up at her. “Even I know that’s a lie.”

She freezes, rage churning in her belly—she’s not pitiful, she’s not a hypocrite, how _dare_ he—and then bites out, “Send for me if you wish to speak again.” Turns. Marches out. If he makes some raw noise and struggles on the floor behind her—it doesn’t matter. It can’t matter.

* * *

The anger fades in a few hours, leaving a deep and churning uncertainty that dogs Edelgard through the evening and keeps her up at her desk stress-reading reports instead of taking time with Hubert. Dogs her through the next day, with the news from below that Dimitri has lapsed into a deep and unresponsive silence. She almost considers going down to rouse him, but she cannot bear the foul taste of going back on her word, nor the thought that he might look at her with—with _that_ in his eye.

She dreads the news that they’ve found him dead in his cell. Just as unbearable as going back on her word. Maybe inevitable. If he can’t keep himself from sliding back into a mire of self-loathing…

She fights the urge to admit that Hubert was right.

Her schedule marches on: tonight it leads her to the smallest and coziest of the semiformal dining rooms for a friendly dinner with Dorothea. She tries to make time for all of her strike force. Ferdinand and Caspar are easy, of course, as they frequent the palace. Of those who don’t, Dorothea is the one she sees the most, despite her own bustling social schedule. Petra has her own business, Linhardt his meandering research, Bernadetta…is Bernadetta. But Dorothea usually manages to make time about once a month, which is a delight.

At least it’s usually a delight. Edelgard’s almost dreading it this month, with this mess gnawing in her gut. Dorothea has such good cheer, and can be a little…socially intense. And she’s one of the most independent and self-determined submissives Edelgard knows, which she respects beyond measure, and which also means she’s particularly careful to treat her as an equal. But if she cancels, it’ll be at _least_ a month before they manage to see each other again, and a month without Dorothea is a dour one.

So she goes. The conversation turns serious even without her prompting. Dorothea must have gotten wind of Ferdinand’s idea about schooling for commoners—perhaps they’d even managed to speak without fighting—and has her own thoughts to voice. Not that she dislikes the idea, far from it, but she’s pointed out that if the cost of that schooling is borne by families, the results will be far from equitable.

“If a few families can’t pay, the crown could certainly cover it,” Edelgard says, busily cutting up her asparagus into delicate bites.

“It’s more than a few families, Edie,” Dorothea says, and helps herself to a generous glass of the red that the palace sommelier had sent up with dinner. “And not everyone’s fortunate enough to have a family at all. Please understand, I’m not suggesting you let it go. Look, do _not_ tell Ferdinand I said this, that man is smug enough already.”

“Oh, of course,” Edelgard says, unhesitating.

“But he’s right that it’s one of the best things you could do for the Empire. I just…want you to understand what it’s actually going to look like.” She offers a sparkling smile. “You need intelligence for a well-designed strategy and all.”

“Naturally. Thank you.” Edelgard takes a bite. It seems flavorless. Is not Adrestia as wealthy as Leicester? It is not as if she’s schooling starving Faerghan peasants—at least not yet. She will be when the time comes, she supposes. “I’ll bear that in mind for budgeting. It would go hand in hand with a census, I suppose. There hasn’t been a proper one since before the Insurrection.”

Another round of service interrupts the ever-spreading uncertainty in Edelgard’s gut with fish and leek soup and fresh-baked rolls, and she chews gently on her lip instead of her dinner. She usually loves anything with leeks, but her appetite’s lost in stress, and she keeps mulling over Dorothea’s words. She has no wish to run some simulacrum of the Church that keeps people weak and dependent on charity. She must open opportunities for advancement for those held down by the old order of nobility. But in a case like this, where might she draw the distinction?

“Dorothea,” Edelgard asks cautiously, setting her spoon down with a clink. “What…what do you think is the difference between pity and empathy?”

Dorothea blinks once, then makes a startled laugh seem as carelessly elegant as anything else. “Oh, Edie. They’re the exact same thing except you call it pity if you don’t like them. There, that’s the clever answer.”

Edelgard digests that uncomfortably. “What is the other answer, then?”

“Macuil’s tits,” Dorothea says, and takes a long drink of her wine. “Well, then. Here’s how I see it. Say you realize that somebody else is having a bad time of it and it hurts you in at least one of your feelings. Maybe even all three.”

“Very well,” Edelgard says, blinking. “I…assume the three feelings are rhetorical and I am not meant to itemize them?”

“No, no, we’d be here all night. So. That’s empathy. It’s…natural, maybe, if I’m being optimistic, but it gets beaten out of most people. But if you then look at that person and think—“ She presses a hand to her bosom and puts on a dripping version of a Gloucester accent. “Poor little thing, they’re so helpless, I must be moved by their plight to come to their aid.” And drops it. “If you see only their suffering and ignore their humanity. That’s pity. Of course, no matter how obnoxious it may be, it still beats starving. Usually.”

Edelgard digests that even more uncomfortably. “So…they have the same root, but…”

“But of course,” Dorothea says, holds one manicured finger up, and empties her glass. “If you then say, no, I shall not pity, I shall allow them to solve their own problems, and you turn away—well. That’s just another way empathy gets beaten out of people, isn’t it? That’s the way even those who could be kind and ‘noble’ can keep letting this world turn how it does.” She doesn’t lift her hand; Edelgard can simply _hear_ the air quotes.

“That’s…paradoxical, is it not?” Edelgard frowns, staring down at her slowly cooling vegetables. “Or at the least, a delicate balance to walk. If…”

Her words die in her throat for just a moment as something falls into place. Ah. _That’s_ why feeling like she’s being pitied is such a red-hot stab in her gut.

“If I understand your meaning,” she continues slowly, “it is less about whether one likes the person one has empathy for, and more about whether one has power over that person.”

Dorothea tears a roll open and reaches for the butter. “Mm-hm. I didn’t say it was an easy answer. Or an absolute one. Things never are outside of a story. But you did ask.”

“Thank you,” Edelgard says, numb and honest.

* * *

A week passes.

Edelgard carries on her duties with a little more focus. Her desk accumulates two stacks of paper to one side, one far larger than the other: the doctor’s brief reports on Dimitri, and whatever documentation she can find on the economic realities of the poorest strata of Enbarr. The former is a mixed bag: he rarely attempts violence against his keepers, but rather more often towards himself. Often lapsing into empty silence for hours, or talking agitatedly to thin air. Eating better, sleeping poorly when he’d been taken off sedatives, and after a few bad nights, requesting them again. Transferred to the new cell without incident.

The latter is…far, far worse than she had expected.

She cautiously adjusts her long-term plans with Hubert. It shouldn’t impact the war. Adrestia _is_ wealthy, that is no illusion. The wealth is merely—concentrated, excessively so. But she’d underestimated the cost of uplifting the population. At least there should be plenty of excess to appropriate from Leicester once they’re ready to move against Claude.

She almost considers swallowing her pride and visiting Dimitri when the word comes that he’s asked for her at last. Not surprising, she supposes, that his far more battered pride has buckled first.

This time, the path to his cell takes them up winding stairs in the far east wing. It had been a folly of her great-grandfather, a grand modern expansion, largely left empty now except for occasional guest housing, secret meetings, and storage. It’s far from the core areas of the palace and the aesthetically refined often find it an eyesore, with its dripping organic decor that was cuttingly modern at the time and did not, in the end, become timeless.

Years ago, it had been a favorite spot for restless imperial children to run wild where nobody could corral them for lessons _too_ readily.

Edelgard suspects what Hubert has done by the time they turn up the second staircase. There’s a series of sitting rooms, stacked one above the other, along the crowning jewel of the wing: a vast window facing northeast, showing off all the cutting-edge glass manufacturing of the time, and set with enough bobbled clear panes and stained glass vines to allow for privacy from the city below. Dimitri’s new cell is in the second-highest one, behind a household security cordon and a newly reinforced door.

She pauses before the door and lets out a thin breath. Looks up at Hubert with a small smile. “You’ve done well. Thank you.”

“It is an appropriate wing in which to house a folly, Your Majesty,” Hubert says, with a twinkle of cheer, and bows his head.

Edelgard actually laughs, then reaches up to press two fingers over his collar. “I appreciate your dedication, as always.”

He closes his eyes for just a moment, the faintest shadow of submission, before she releases him and he turns to press a hand against the doorjamb. Light flares in arcane patterns, and from within, she hears a few ticks and then a heavy clack. “His new restraints,” Hubert informs her, “are magically activated. It’s something my engineers had been developing from some borrowed technology.” Borrowed from the Agarthans, no doubt. “I took the liberty of accelerating the work. We engage them only when we need to interact with him, and he’s otherwise completely free to move. I believe you should be able to use the interface, at least with practice.”

She feels her eyebrows raise, genuinely impressed. “Again, thank you.”

And in she goes.

The room is barely recognizable as the dusty hideout, cluttered with antiques, that she remembers from childhood. The knick-knacks have been carted away and the furniture replaced with simple and heavy pieces: bed, chair, table. A gloriously thick carpet has been laid down, except under the bathtub awkwardly inserted to one side, near the garderobe closet. A set of bars lines the floor-to-ceiling window that fills the entire wall, far enough back that even Dimitri’s long limbs cannot reach the glass, but even with that intrusion, the room is filled with light.

This part of the window, she remembers dimly, has the most clear glass. The highest room is just vines; the lower, medallions. Hubert is a treasure.

Dimitri’s standing tall in front of the window, silhouetted by the light, and as he turns to face her, slow and shuffling, she takes in Hubert’s new invention. Heavy bands of agarthium are molded to Dimitri’s wrists and ankles. Normally, she’s guessing, they’re loose, but the faint light of channeled magic through lines tooled in the metal binds them together. His ankles have a few inches of swivel, that he might hobble where he’s needed. His wrists have no such give, and are locked together rigidly, folded in the small of his back. The muzzle is still in place, but a faint sparkle along its bars makes her wonder if it sits open when inactive so that he might eat more easily.

“Edelgard.” He takes her in with a studied calm she hadn’t quite expected. His hair is combed, and the gaunt edge of hunger and dehydration has softened. He’s wearing a simple leather eyepatch now—he must have asked for it. The muzzle has gotten in the way of his shaving, so there are little scruffs growing around it, but otherwise he’s quite kempt. He acknowledges Hubert with one glance, then raises his chin slightly like the prince he is, as if his bonds and muzzle aren’t even there. “May we speak freely here?”

Hubert stands in her shadow, and Edelgard nods. “Yes.”

“Everything you have told me about Those who Slither. The Church. The Tragedy. I need proof.”

“You are not in a position to demand anything,” Hubert says promptly.

Edelgard lifts a hand, holding Dimitri with a glance and trusting Hubert to watch her.

They both fall silent.

“Here is the difficulty,” she says crisply. “Much of this has passed in whisper and shadow. There are certainly documents I can give you with regards to the Church. Redacted records, mostly, which make it obvious that the archbishop’s crown has never left Seiros’ head, as well as the extent to which she’s undermined Fódlan’s progress and liberty.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Dimitri says levelly.

“You found your own trail of evidence to my…supposed uncle. I assume you’re satisfied with those findings. We,” and she nods in Hubert’s direction, “have kept our own documentation of what we’ve learned from and about Those Who Slither.”

“Your Majesty,” Hubert says, with that soft edge to his voice that means he’s a little bit under and a little bit annoyed. “We should discuss before allowing him access to my files.”

“Of course.” She looks back to Dimitri. “And I can say nothing to assure you that these documents would be neither forgery nor delusion. Your conclusions shall be your own.”

“I don’t disbelieve the existence of those creatures,” Dimitri says, a little thickly. “Not after what happened at Garreg Mach.”

“Mm.” She lifts her chin. “But I assume, at the heart of it, you seek proof that I had no hand in the Tragedy, nor the intent to allow my false allies to run unchecked.”

“You _have_ allowed them to run unchecked,” Dimitri says. “I need no proof of that.”

Hubert is silent, but she can practically feel the air prickle behind her in rage. “And I cannot prove my intent,” Edelgard says levelly. “Nor the ways in which I have checked them. There is no proof of thoughts and whispers.”

“I am aware,” Dimitri says, without any particular edge, “of the gulf between written record and a person’s heart. And I am aware that you think me a fool. But even I cannot be so foolish as to take you solely at your word.”

He had seemed to before, Edelgard thinks—and she isn’t sure whether to be wistful about that or relieved to see he’s gathered himself enough to seek something more concrete. It had been…pleasant. To be trusted, even a little, however briefly. A guilty pleasure, certainly, and not one she should put any weight on.

“How,” Hubert asks after a brief and thick silence, “did you come to suspect Lord Arundel?”

Dimitri closes his eye, brow furrowing like he’s recalling something very far away. “Financial records, by and large. The money trail…he’s not a fool, it had been covered, but a company strong enough to overwhelm royal knights isn’t cheap. And the trail led south, into the Empire. It was at Garreg Mach, in the church’s records, that I linked it to Arundel. So many inconsistencies in his finances…”

“Circumstantial,” Hubert says. “In the end.”

“True. But considerable. There were no improvements to Arundel’s lands, no obviously purchased favors bestowed upon him soon after. Nowhere his missing money seemed to lead except back to Duscur.”

“Perhaps you would have been better off as a legal clerk than a prince,” Hubert drawls. Dimitri, not to her surprise, though perhaps to Hubert’s, barely reacts.

“No doubt,” is all he says, and she hardly needs to look at Hubert to know he’s deflated slightly. But she does anyway. He’s resting his knuckles on his chin, studying Dimitri with barely concealed interest.

“He already knows our secret agenda,” Edelgard says quietly. “Would it change anything to allow him full access?”

Hubert’s gaze flicks to her, then back to Dimitri. “And if you had Lord Arundel at your mercy tomorrow?” he asks him.

Dimitri stirs. It’s subliminal, a ripple of his broad shoulders where they’re pulled back by the unyielding grip of his cuffs. “I would tear the flesh from his bones, crush his skull, and burn every scrap of his remains. If you worry whether I would betray your mistress for that beast in a human skin, no matter how much I may doubt her, it is you who are the fool.”

“Well, I certainly can’t question your sense of drama,” Hubert says.

“As if you can speak on that,” Edelgard murmurs fondly.

“And what,” Hubert continues, voice growing sharper, “if your chance for revenge came at the cost of hundreds of Imperial civilians? Or a war that makes Her Majesty’s bloody path look like a harmless running of the hounds?”

Dimitri falls silent, dropping his gaze.

“Come now.” Hubert’s voice drops, soft and almost seductive. “They’d only be men and women like your doctor. Loyal to your enemies. I’ve seen you eyeing his throat. What would you do if we took that muzzle off your face?”

Dimitri takes a few shivering breaths before he finally says, low and uncertain, “What does that matter? You won’t.”

“And yet you ask us to,” Hubert says. “You ask us to treat you as a man, an equal, a genteel hostage to negotiate with instead of a beast to be kenneled. You seek information that by itself, without freedom to act, is useless. And information is always power. So to what end shall we give you power?”

“You mock me,” Dimitri says, gaze still dropped to the floor. “I…shall not act again. You of all people know this. You ensure it.”

“Then why ask?” Hubert says, looming a step closer.

“Hubert,” Edelgard says gently.

“Clarity,” Dimitri fumbles. “To…know. You…I do not know if you can understand.”

Edelgard can see the challenge catch at Hubert’s pride, regardless of whether Dimitri intended it as such. “Oh?” Hubert says. “Please do explain.”

“Gentlemen,” Edelgard says, letting her voice ring firm. “Hubert, I do believe I understand his reasons, and I accept them.”

“I, however, do not,” Hubert says. “And you have granted me discretion in certain matters.”

Edelgard blows out a sigh between her teeth. “That I did. Please use discretion in turn while tormenting him.”

“I would hardly consider this torment,” Hubert says. “Though I could always send for the thumbscrews…”

Dimitri actually laughs, rough and hollow. “It’s fair to ask. I do not know if I can explain…”

“I welcome the attempt,” Hubert says dryly.

Dimitri sways just a little, closing his eye, and Edelgard abruptly appreciates the thick carpet, given how he’s bound. “That day in Duscur…it’s. It seems a childish thing to even speak of, given everything. But. One expects the world to make sense. And that stopped. I didn’t know why they’d died, who had caused it. And then the lies about it began, and everyone saying that I must have seen wrong, and the more I dug, the less sense it made. I didn’t know Faerghus, or what is possible in this world, or some of those close to me, or even at times my own mind. Truth is…an illusion, probably. Yet still I chase it. For its own sake. And now I sit in an empty room, certain of nothing.”

Hubert studies Dimitri; Edelgard, in turn, studies Hubert. Watches the sarcastic thinning of his lips soften.

“I suppose,” Dimitri says, “in the end, it is really just to soothe myself. To understand a little better.” His voice is quiet, numb, in a way that makes Edelgard’s spine prickle. “It was a foolish request. Feel free to ignore it.”

Edelgard draws breath. Hubert waves a gloved hand. “I need do no such thing. I’ll arrange for you to have access to my backup copies. Nothing irreplaceable, though. Can’t have you shredding it.”

Dimitri blinks up at him, finally lifting his head, a genuine gasp of surprise through his teeth. Then he bows from the waist. “Thank you.”

* * *

Their duties take them their separate ways until the evening, so it’s hours until Hubert is settled naked on his knees in Edelgard’s bedchamber and they can talk. Or, perhaps more accurately, until she can tease him about it. “And here I thought you were going to discuss with me before letting Dimitri into your files.”

Hubert huffs, leaves his hands folded behind his back. “I can understand a desire for knowledge. And he is perhaps the most well-supervised individual on the continent right now. I will know if he so much as raises a finger against your interests. You did, after all, leave it at my discretion.”

“So I did.” She plays with his hair, twisting the bit that hangs over his face. “I’m just enjoying the pleasant surprise.”

Hubert shrugs, small and idle. “He’s interestingly earnest. And a delight to manipulate.”

Edelgard snorts. “Also none of my strike force is afraid of you anymore, thanks to your kind indulgence of Bernadetta, so you need somebody new to threaten for sport?”

Hubert doesn’t dignify that with a response, however true it may be. “Though I might have him fitted with a far more restrictive muzzle, should he insult you again. Or perhaps some branks. The spiked sort.”

“If I couldn’t tolerate insults from a submissive, I’d find such a toy for you,” she says, tugging his ear—which she _knows_ he finds obnoxious, she’d discovered that when they were tiny. Then she pinches his lip—less obnoxious, more distracting. It’s not like they don’t have a muzzle or two in the closet. “Is this your roundabout way of hinting, dear Hubert?”

“I am ever at your disposal, Your Majesty,” he says, elaborately ironic. “And you have been quite caught up in this situation. Perhaps you could benefit from an intensive session to soothe your nerves.”

And so could he, even if he will never admit it. She has been using him hard. To an end he dislikes, no less. And she’s buzzing with pent-up energy. “Perhaps I could,” she says, trailing a finger down the side of his neck. His eyes flicker, half-lidded, his chin lifting just an inch to bare his throat, and oh, for Hubert to be showing even that much of a reaction means he’s aching for it. “As always, dear Hubert, I welcome your advice.” She lets her voice shade dangerous, paired with a tug on his collar. “A single suggestion. Select it. You shall have no say in the rest.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he murmurs with a shaky sigh, head falling back to bare his throat entirely as he finally lets himself enjoy his nature without calculation.

He is at least obedient enough to crawl.

* * *

Hubert returns with his suggestion dragging across the carpet after him. A rigid bar that links four points: a thick collar, loops to pin the biceps, cuffs for the wrists, and a metal arm that, when correctly positioned, holds a heavy dildo lodged deep in the wearer’s ass.

Hubert may as well scream that he needs to be hurt and humiliated until his eyes wet and he can’t help but cling to her upon release. Edelgard’s never seen him cry, not even on the worst days of their lives, and never from either affection or pain, but she has, once or twice, gotten him close. Her heart swells, her blood heats, and she leans over to light a candelabra.

His eyes widen, face crumpling a little with earnest gratitude, and his shoulders loosen an inch with relief, because it is a very particular candelabra. It’s set with soft wax candles, the sort that burns at the perfect temperature to hurt but not scorch skin.

He kisses her feet in gratitude.

She makes him beg for it.

Even when he earnestly wants it, Hubert needs to be dragged under, clenching and fussing all the way. He’s simply too much of a control freak, which she can hardly begrudge him—she’d be the same way if she’d had the wretched luck to be born a submissive in her position. Rambling professions of his obedience and adoration do not count. No, she pushes him to abject begging, face to the carpet, with a few rounds of hearty teasing about getting worked up over dungeon irons and whether he might want a muzzle and a yoke next.

And when he’s finally locked in, shoulders pulled back, pinned in rigid steel and giving a hapless punched-out gasp every time the thing moves even a little—oh, it’s a good look on him. Given how deep it’s shoved up his ass, he must feel even the little tremors of his wrists in their cuffs. Never mind a hearty shake as she hooks a finger through the hole at the top of the rod, behind his head, and tugs him like a puppet on her string. She makes him stand, enjoying the hisses between his teeth as he moves around it. She clips a chain between that hole and the ceiling, so that even the little shuffles of his feet drag his body weight against the dildo.

And she loves him.

She loves him with pincers on his nipples and a whippy cane on his long narrow thighs. She loves him with clothespins on the cartilage of his ears and knuckles driven into the pressure points in his armpits. She loves him with thin cords and hot wax and weights on his balls, with palm-slaps to the length of his cock, with nails down the pinioned length of his body, and he shakes and sings and screams with it, and there’s nothing left in the world but the wordless pleading moan as she ramps him up to the edge. The different moan, relief, as she lifts up her hand and lets the weights on his balls hold him back. Twice. Thrice.

Hubert keens in frustration and babbles his relief every time she keeps him from the edge. He doesn’t want it to be over. Raw exultation rolls off him, feeding her like candy. He’s wallowing in this, and there’s some world out there beyond their locked door, but it doesn’t matter. There’s no time, no worry, no stressful prisoners. There’s just spelling out how much she cares for him in spatters of wax and the red lines of her cane, and finding how much weight on his balls will make her Minister of the Imperial Household drool in sheer hazy delight so she can mock him relentlessly about it. Even when he finally comes, spasming helpless in his steel cage, and she lets him down and frees him, it’s only to straddle his face, letting more blissful time wind by as he devours her like she’s the last thing he’ll ever taste.

They hold each other for a long, long time afterwards, skin on skin, and the world doesn’t come back. They don’t talk much. It’s easier that way. A bath, after they drag themselves to it, and Edelgard dozes off in the bony circle of Hubert’s arms.

* * *

Edelgard wakes, slow in the deep night, and for once it’s not from a nightmare. Just one of those quiet times between sleeps. There’s a deep, settled contentment lingering in her chest, and she yawns, enjoying the way the dim light from outside paints patterns on the carpet.

Hubert’s spot in bed is empty, and she slides out of bed, cracks open the door to the adjoining study, and spots a tall shadow working away at his desk. Scratch, scratch of his pen. A soft murmur as he notices her.

It’s past moonset, and she pulls on her dressing gown against the growing autumn chill and drifts out onto her balcony to watch the stars. Only a few lights burn in Enbarr this late at night, mostly in the theater district, and the night breeze off the ocean is slow. If she listens very hard, she almost imagines she can hear a distant voice or two below, drunken whoops from a late party, or the clack of ships and moorings at the docks.

After a time, Hubert pads out onto the balcony beside her.

“Will you come back to bed?” he asks quietly.

“Mm.” She leans into his space. “Soon, probably. You?”

“I have matters to attend to,” he says, with a trace of grim irony.

“Oh, Hubert,” she murmurs. Yet he does not seem particularly tired. He rarely is after an intense session—if anything, it energizes him.

The wind wafts. Hubert soaks up the view, a pale blur in the starlight. “It’s rather chilly,” he says at last. “What brings you out here?”

“The view.” She’s quiet for a moment, lost in the still thoughts of the hour of the wolf. “Sometimes I’d come out here and watch the city and think that in all those streets and buildings, of all the people in all the world, you are the only one who knows me at all.” Hubert watches her in silence, eyes gimlet-silver in the dark, and some emotion she can’t name clutches her throat. “And tonight I realized. That isn’t true anymore.”

He reaches over to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear, feather-light and horribly gentle even with his black-stained fingers. “Being known,” he murmurs, “is a terror. And a luxury rarely afforded to people like us.”

She makes one thin noise in the back of her throat and slowly tips into his chest, burying her face in the bare slice of skin where his robe sits open and drinking in the smell of him—coffee, the cold sweat of exhaustion, the musty comfort of dark magic, wax-burned hair. His arms fold up around her, and for a long moment, she lets herself be enveloped.

“Has it helped you?” he asks, quiet into her hair, as she curls against him. “To be known by another?”

She stills with another wretched little noise, and decides to mash her nose against his chest in lieu of answering. Then, eventually, “I don’t know. It’s too soon. And he’s too…he’s still on the brink. He could just disappear, any night, and then it’ll be just you again.”

His arms tighten. Just a little.

“And, yes, I know, you told me so. But…it has still been pleasant. Being known. Being able to just—speak with him. It’s a silly little wish, but still, I wish things could have gone differently.”

“It would not have been possible.”

“I know.” She bunches her fists in his dressing gown, and thinks of her path, and knows how she is bound to it. “I know.”


	3. Will

**III — WILL**

A few days later, Edelgard finds a plain, unsealed envelope at the bottom of her morning briefings. She raises an eyebrow at Hubert, who simply inclines his head—so he knows of it. All well and good.

Inside is a single page, in large and unrefined handwriting.

_Edelgard,_

_I hope this finds you well. I do not know if you would wish to speak with me of more personal matters again. If you do, please visit whenever you choose, although I must ask that you send word if it will be much after nightfall, so that I may be awake. If you do not, I shall not trouble you further._

_— Dimitri_

She reads it twice, rapidly, and runs a hand over it, feeling the deep indents of his penmanship. “You’ve read this, I assume?”

“Naturally. He requested pen and paper in the course of going through the documents we sent. I used my discretion.”

Edelgard takes a deep drink of her cooling tea. “Have you spoken with him much since our last meeting?”

“Only briefly. My time, as always, is limited, and ever yours. He seems similarly lucid. And he devours everything he’s given.” He quirks a wry smile. “You have been tempted to use him as a secret lance against certain acquaintances. I admit that I am tempted to use him as an intelligence analyst.”

Edelgard indulges a smug little smile and reaches across the table to tweak Hubert’s nose. “And how serious is that temptation, Minister von Vestra?”

“An idle thought as of yet.” He catches her hand to kiss it, an affectation he performs only with irony. “A few days of lucidity does not a trustworthy agent make, especially knowing he has also reached some spectacularly wrong conclusions in the past.” She reclaims her hand, the better to eat more cookies with. “And what of your temptations?” Hubert’s voice is uncharacteristically quiet, thoughtful. “You could close that door. He is affording you that opportunity.”

Edelgard takes a deep slow breath. Lets it out. Eats a cookie. “It would be…perhaps the wise thing, but also cruel. And disingenuous in a way. At the very least, he should know that I am not angry at him, and perhaps we would both benefit in giving him a chance to air his regrets.” Another cookie, bolstering her gathering determination. “I should not be frightened of the fact that he, in some strange way, cares for me. That’s quite embarrassing thing to be a coward about, really.”

“Shall I prepare more tea, then, Your Majesty?” Hubert asks, and it might be a very subtle difference between a barb and a joke, but Edelgard knows him far too well.

“Be careful, dear Hubert. I might _not_ put clothespins on your balls, and then where would you be?”

“In the deepest pits of torment,” he says genially.

* * *

Edelgard makes time for Dimitri in the evening, sends word to be polite, and comes in to find him as tidy and healthy as before. He’s sitting this time, clearly having arranged himself for comfort before his restraints activated, and there’s another chair set out at the table, which is now covered with documents and notes and cups of chamomile tea and snapped quills. A number of lanterns line the room, filling it with light against the deepening blue-black of the sky outside. The first stars are coming out, and a swollen moon hangs over the glittering expanse of Enbarr below. A calendar hangs on the wall with the last two days marked off, like he’s started to track the time.

Hubert stays outside this time. The door closes with a resounding thud and the clack of steel bolts.

Edelgard settles in the other chair, smooths down her heavy crimson skirts, and lifts her chin. They study each other for a moment, awkward, before Dimitri clears his throat. “Thank you. For coming. I…wasn’t sure you would.”

There’s no anger in his voice. It’s a little hoarse, perhaps from disuse, but not a screamed-raw rasp this time. He’s still combed, as clean-shaven as he can manage—his hair even hangs a little stiff and damp, like he’d bathed before her arrival.

“I wouldn’t have a week ago,” she admits frankly.

“I wouldn’t have had much to say a week ago,” he says, sheepish. “I…well. You probably know.”

“I should make it clear,” she starts, hedging away from anything like an apology—she can never afford those. “I’m not angry with you. Certainly not anymore. I’m simply not…you are the first who has ever known any of my troubles aside from Hubert. And certain responsible parties, of course, but that’s rather different. I suppose I do not deal with sympathy well.”

“You’re proud,” Dimitri says simply. Like it’s obvious, and he already understood it days ago, and Edelgard feels a _little_ silly.

“Yes, well.”

“I…do feel sympathy for you,” he says quietly, looking her steadily in the eye, and she balls her hands into fists in her skirt under the table to brace herself against _that_. “I don’t think it would be possible for me not to. But unwanted sympathy, false sympathy…I know a little of how that feels.”

“It did not feel false,” Edelgard says, because she isn’t sure what else she _can_ say, but she must say something, because otherwise he might just keep talking at her with that earnest stare, and that’s proving quite difficult. “Was there something in particular you wanted to discuss?”

His face does something quietly complicated, and he studies a corner instead, which is a faint relief. “A…few things, I suppose. At least two.” He swallows; she watches his throat bob and realizes, to her dismay, that she’s noticed the line of his neck now, unyoked and bared by his simple collarless tunic, and probably won’t stop noticing it for a while. “I should also…well. I cannot say that you have not done things that have angered me. But it seems clear to me by now that you had nothing to do with the Tragedy. I am sorry I believed that so readily.”

 _You noticed_ , she thinks, and bites her tongue against it, because one who categorically refuses to apologize can at least afford a little grace to one who stoops to it. “Thank you,” she says gravely.

He shifts, silent. He’s still not meeting her gaze, turned a little aside, bowed a touch forward by the awkward necessity of fitting his cuffed arms between his back and the chair, face quiet in thought. “I do not know if this is even a discussion you wish to have,” he says eventually, awkwardly cautious. “But…do you regret that night? That morning?”

Edelgard blows out a deep breath. “It seems foolish to keep avoiding it, yes. I. In some ways, yes. Not, to be clear, out of distaste, or dissatisfaction in the moment. But it was.” She picks at her skirt, smooths it out again. “I try to keep my mind clear and my personal life simple. That hardly qualified as either.”

He laughs softly. “That is an extraordinary understatement.”

She feels herself smile. “It was a mite irregular.”

“Not in your calendar.”

“Unscheduled and unauthorized.” They share that laugh, soft and brief, and he actually has a trace of his own smile, there and gone beneath the bars of his muzzle. His gaze flickers to her face, then drops a little wistfully to his teacup, then back to the corner he’s studying. “What about you?” she asks, as gently as she can manage.

“In…some ways,” he echoes her. “It is…nearly impossible to not hate myself for allowing that. For wanting it. Even harder than it is to not hate myself for living, or for allowing myself to be healed, given small comforts, any of that. I was—well, you saw how I was.” His brow furrows and he looks up at her, urgent. “Not because of you, to be clear, or what you did. You didn’t hurt me.”

She doesn’t want to admit that it’s a relief, a hot little rush of it. She carries so many doubts and regrets, busily bundling each one of them up and setting it aside on her path—had she even noticed that one? It’s her turn to eye the tea wistfully, but that would be rude. Also chamomile makes her sleepy. “I’m—glad to hear that. Yes.”

He ducks his head in acknowledgement. “Yet…for all that I tried to destroy myself for it, I could not escape the fact that I did—want it.” His voice frays, soft. “What that means about me…” He shakes his head. “How long has it even been? I…lost some days.”

“Twelve days.”

“Twelve days and I still can’t entirely face what that means about me.” He huffs a laugh. “When I put it like that, it does not seem quite as absurd. Twelve days is such a little time in which to change.” He’s quiet for a moment, then. “The Blaiddyd prince is dead. Dead on the morning of his execution. I’m…some purposeless thing that lives on in his body. Sometimes it feels like that. Or perhaps that’s just the only way I can make sense of it.” He blinks, shakes his head again. “I’m sorry. I am rambling.”

“Dimitri…”

He stirs himself a little, lifts his chin, still can’t meet her eyes. Pink dusts his face. “Did you—was it satisfying, at least? Was I—“ He bites off his words. “Did you find it enjoyable?”

“Yes,” Edelgard says, and then her mind catches up with her and she takes a deep, careful breath. “I had thought I had made that clear.” Her heart trips faster. Deliberate, studying his face, she says, “You were very good for me.”

He closes his eye like he’s been struck. One tremble. A small noise of relief, and he sags further forward, head bowed.

The air seems to buzz between them, and Edelgard vibrates with need, right down to the root of her spine. “Hubert is going to laugh at me if I do this again,” she says faintly.

Dimitri fumbles, licks his lips, and says, “Well, that’s rather rude of a retainer, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I would never pretend he’s anything other than dreadfully rude.” And listening to this, no doubt in amusement. She doesn’t even try to keep the naked fondness from his voice. “He is my collared submissive. Personally by now, as you’d understand it in Faerghus, not merely professionally.”

“I…had wondered. You have my congratulations.” It’s quietly earnest. Perhaps wistful—the specter of Dedue, she suspects, hangs close. “Edelgard.” He forces a careful breath. “El, I…”

She flattens her hands on her knees, keeps herself and her voice very carefully level. “Do you remember what to say to stop this?”

He nods, wordless.

“Kneel,” she says, quiet, with all her power unchecked behind it.

He slides out of his chair like a rag doll, lands with a thump.

A warm and pleasant tingle slides down her spine, and she stands, letting go of that tight control like an unclenching fist. Rounds the table. He looks up at her with parted lips, swaying very slightly on his knees. The restraints keep him locked in a rigidly submissive posture, arms folded behind him, knees spread a little to balance himself with his close-bound ankles.

She comes up to stand over him, leisurely, and settles a hand in his hair. “Good boy,” she says, quiet, but there’s no need to hold herself back now, is there?

He makes a soft, broken noise under the weight of her dominance, and leans faintly into the heat of her body, like he barely even realizes he’s doing it, but his brow crumples. “I…t-that’s…”

She gets a firm grip on the strap of his muzzle, pulls his head back to study his face. “Do you want to argue with me about that?”

“I don’t…I feel like I need to. I-I’m sorry—”

Edelgard catches a fistful of his hair in her other hand, gives one declaratory pull. “Hush. I’m the one who decides if you are good now. You are doing well. If that changes, you will know.”

He blinks up at her and slowly relaxes as that sinks in, sliding further into a haze of submission. He’s so expressive, she thinks, turning his head gently this way and that, exploring his hair and the corded line of his throat. Pulling Hubert under, _actually_ under, is an elaborate dance, and he gives only the tiniest of tells in his eyes and voice. Dimitri melts like wax in flame at a touch, practically glowing with surrender and need. Part of her wants to ruin him. Part of her just wants to wrap around him and hold him until those shoulders unhitch the rest of the way.

The way he leans into her, unconscious, yearning, decides it. She slides closer, pressing one leg against his side, and he molds himself against her.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” she says. “At least not at the moment. I’m also not going to have you unbound. But I think you need to stay here for a time. Two things.” She pulls him up by the muzzle-straps, commanding his attention. “Tell me if your legs go to sleep, or if you are otherwise uncomfortable. That’s an order.”

He gives a small, uncertain nod. “Yes…” And fumbles. “What…what should I call you?”

“My name is fine. I get enough formality every day.” He gives a faint, wry smile—well, he might understand that, yes. “That was good of you to ask. Now. I want to hold you for a time, but if you need to stay under longer, may I read through your notes if my mind grows restless?”

He blinks at that, quiet, then nods again.

She rearranges the furniture around him. His chair, still warm from his own body, pulled up close so she can sit and tuck him between her legs, and he settles with his head on her knee, turned to one side because of the muzzle, and gives an aching sigh of relief as she strokes his hair. She shoves the table a few feet away to make space; if she needs to read, she can pull it back.

The nape of his neck is bare, between the uneven fall of his hair and his loose shirt, and she folds her hand over it, squeezing possessively. He makes a soft noise, shakes a little, relaxes another inch against her. “Lovely,” she murmurs, and he squirms, big hands flexing behind him in his cuffs, then settles slowly in mute and dutiful acceptance as she digs her nails in. Yes. Yes, this is good. Dimitri quiet and tame between her legs. It’s absurd how _right_ this feels, warm and satisfied in her bones, but there it is.

There’s something missing, so she curls over him, brushing his hair aside, so she can set her teeth in his neck. He draws a hissing breath, tensing. “They’ll…see. If you mark me. The doctor, the guards.”

“Does that trouble you?” She lifts her head, rubs circles with her thumb on his heated skin. “It is not as if they don’t know, or readily suspect.”

“I…suppose that’s true.” She can feel his face warm even through her skirts. “Then…as you wish, El.”

“Good boy,” she breathes, and bites harder as he shivers, and it might be both of them who make small hungry noises as she sucks a bruise into his pale skin. Another mark as he falls deeper into his trance, practically purring under that small pain. Masochists. She’s collecting them, apparently. She’s never thought of herself as a sadist per se, just somebody who enjoys reactions, enjoys pushing people past the edges of their composure, enjoys rewarding discipline, but she is starting to wonder. A third mark, lined up like she’s giving him a collar of them, and he’s breathing open-mouthed. She’s tempted—oh she’s tempted. Ring his neck, bite her name into his skin. But that would involve moving, and he’s right where he belongs.

Instead she marks up the whole back of his neck, and plays with his ears and pulls his hair and holds him. Just holds him, squeezing him tight between her thighs, fitting a hand over his throat until he shakes and melts beneath her.

The moon floats up in the sky. The stars are out in full; the great river of the sky runs over the mountains beyond Enbarr, and a few of the lights below wink out. The window is a vast darkness beyond the bright glow of the chamber, and she traces the sensitive, flushed edge of Dimitri’s ear like she could memorize it.

She doesn’t want this to stop. Well, this in particular will stop eventually: she’ll get bored, his legs will fall asleep, he’s up past his bedtime, and she still has some reading she wants to do. But this peace between them—she bites her lip and shoves the thought aside, and digs nails into Dimitri’s shoulders to settle herself, pulls his hair, pets and plays with what’s hers as he hums softly in contentment.

It’s been a while. He shifts, once or twice, asking permission every time, for the sake of his legs. She honestly isn’t quite sure of the time. She considers stripping down, cutting his shirt off, so she can hold him skin to skin—has he ever even felt that? She hadn’t until she’d become intimate with Hubert, and it had been quite an experience for them both. But that means baring her scars, possibly more of his, and she isn’t—quite ready for that. Cowardly. But true.

There’s a pleasant heat pooling in her cunt, stirred by his bound strength and the soul-satisfying pull of dominating him, but she lets it build comfortably. She can take Hubert later. There will be time. It’s not the desperate carelessness of that morning on the roof. She can enjoy just this for its own sake.

He’s boneless between her legs, an oversized dead weight against her, and he’s breathing so slow and steady that she almost wonders—yes, he’s dozing. She picks hair off his forehead, petting him, and he makes some soft noise in his sleep, then jolts a little.

“…El?” he mumbles.

“Yes.” She ruffles his hair. “You slept a little.”

“Oh. I…I’m sorry.”

“Sshhh.” She holds his nape, squeezing gently, until his shoulders unhitch again. “I wanted you to relax. And you’ve done very well.”

He almost whines with relief into her thigh.

“Praise has quite an effect on you,” she says, thoughtful.

“It…does.” His words are slow, stumbling, but at least he’s not nonverbal. “I don’t know how to explain it. I didn’t realize…how much it could be.”

“I think you should thank me for it.” She barely even has to put any force into her voice. It still hits him; she sees him shiver in his bonds, hears him swallow hard.

“Yes, El,” he breathes after a moment. “Thank you, El.”

She breathes through _that_ rush with a low coil of arousal, squeezing him snug between her thighs. Well, telling him to use her name had been a dangerous choice. There’s no practiced formality in him—no doubt he was never taught the submissive’s side of that dance, or whatever passes for it in Faerghus. His unpolished frankness is—an experience. “I’d imagine it’s late for you. I’ve heard you’ve been trying to get better sleep.”

“It…yes, it’s probably…” His hands fidget in his cuffs, and there’s something wistful in his voice.

“Come,” she says, and reaches down to slide an arm around his chest. “Let’s get you to bed.”

He tries to get his feet under him, but it’s little more than an awkward shuffle, given his bound ankles. “I—don’t know if I can—”

“It’s all right. I’ve got you.” It takes a moment for her to figure out the best way to hold him, and he’s not exactly light. But neither is she weak. She pulls him to his feet, steadies him as he finds his balance. He keeps his head bowed, eyes scanning the floor, like he isn’t quite sure how to reconcile looming over her with being deep in subspace.

She reaches up to cup his cheek, back near his ear where the bars of his muzzle sit close and heated by his skin, and he leans into it hazy-eyed. She lets that hand wander down, lazily exploring his body, and he blisses at the touch. Then looks faintly puzzled and pink as she discovers the tent in his trousers, traces the outline of hard heat under loose fabric.

“You said…you weren’t going to…” He hardly seems upset. Only confused.

“Mm. Not like last time. I’d like to tuck you in and take care of this.” It’s—instinct. She’s never done anything quite like this before, but it seems like it would be pleasant.

His face heats, and he shivers like he’s having trouble accepting such a kindness, even this far under, but he swallows it down. “As you wish.”

“Good boy,” she says, and pulls his bowed head down enough to brush his hair back and kiss his forehead.

He struggles half-heartedly with himself, thanks her, and lets her guide him to bed, slow and shuffling. It’s another production getting him onto it, taking half his huge weight in her arms, but then he’s curled cozy on his side, his right so he can see her easily, and she puts a pillow under his head and folds his blanket over his big bare feet. With his arms folded like that, she could have him on his back, but no doubt the cuffs would be uncomfortable against his spine. So this will do. She perches on the edge of the bed, petting him.

It’s…a strange feeling, wanting to cozy him in like this. She’d never done anything like this with Hubert. It’s almost absurd to even contemplate. He’d always been the one to take care of her. His submission is service, adoration under his layers of irony and melodrama, slowly baring his own yearning for pain and humiliation. But never vulnerability.

Dimitri’s trembling, just a little, and she brushes his hair out of his eye. “Are you cold?”

“N…no. I don’t know why I’m…” He worries his lip, and she fists his hair until he stops, settling. “This is…so strange.”

She hesitates for a moment, then admits, “For me as well.” He makes a small, questioning noise, eye searching her, and she smoothes her palm down his side, his hip, the strong line of his thigh. “Hubert is not a particularly tender man, and I’ve taken no other personal submissives.”

“I thought Adrestian emperors had stables of them,” Dimitri murmurs, soft and absent again, melting under her hand.

Edelgard laughs quietly. “A common misconception. Though it’s true that I’m a little austere. I…rarely let people close.”

“Mm.” He’s quiet, drifting back into his pleasant haze as she lazily explores his body. “It’s hard when…”

“When?” she prompts after a moment of silence, feeling the cut of his hips under the thin loose fabric of his trousers.

“When they do not live in the same world.” It’s a distant murmur. “The world where those things happened.”

Edelgard can’t help one shaky gasp like she’s been punched in the chest. She had never—never quite put it into those words. Yet it’s so true that it hurts. “It’s…a lonely world,” she whispers, and brushes fingertips through his hair.

He makes a soft noise and turns his head into her hand. The only affection he can give.

“I’ll be back in just a moment,” she murmurs, bending down to kiss his temple, and bustles off to get a washcloth from near his basin. His eye tracks her, like he can’t quite relax into it when she’s not present. She’d messed with his trousers enough that the very tip of his cock is peeking out, needy red and shiny, and he flushes when he notices it, curls a little tighter. “Don’t fuss,” she tells him, damping one side of it and coming back to his bedside.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, then flushes a touch darker. “Sorry, El.”

“Don’t fuss about that either.” She settles, strokes his hair again, then holds him by the back of the neck until he goes still and boneless again. “It’s not as if I’d ordered you to hold still. And I have no interest in strict protocol, nor in punishing people for their instincts. Especially tonight, you’re just to relax and do as I say.”

He lets out a long, slow breath, eye drifting half-closed. “Yes, El.”

“Good boy,” she says, and he makes a noise almost like a dry sob, turning his face a little into the pillow. And thanks her.

She has no oil, and can’t make him wet her hand with the muzzle in the way, so she resorts, a little sheepishly, to licking her palm before she slides into his trousers, wraps around the pleasant heated velvet of his cock. His breath turns shaky, a little tremble running through his body, and he keeps his face turned away. She plays with him, taking her time like she hadn’t on the roof: he likes either a firm squeeze or a delicate tease about the head, his balls are sensitive and playing with them makes him shake, and it’s handy to keep him wet without the foreskin to ease things along. She snugs fingers around the base, squeezes until he groans, contemplates how nicely it would stand out all tied up.

“Don’t hide your face,” she says, giving a long firm stroke to make him moan. His head jerks, eye turning up to her, and she cups his balls to steal away whatever apology he might make on a gasp. “If you’re wondering what I get out of this,” she continues, setting a slow but steady rhythm, “it’s you. You’re wonderfully reactive. I want to see you let go. To pull pleasure out of you, since you struggle so much with accepting it.”

“Oh, goddess,” Dimitri breathes, face heating. One squirm in his bonds like he’s wondering how to get out of this, but he doesn’t hide his face again.

“Don’t hold back. When you’re close, let it come. You have permission. Encouragement, even.” She rolls her palm over the head and wrings a shaky gasp out of him. Someday, she thinks—a mad thought, there’s no telling if this will happen a third time—she wants to edge him, see if she can get him begging for the pleasure he’s so desperate to deny himself. But that will take doing for him, she can only assume. For now—for now she’ll just work him up slowly. See what unravels.

His breathing frays first, quick and ragged. His noises stay almost subliminal, faint moans, and she wonders how that will change if she has something inside him. The blanket quivers, and she almost regrets covering up his big twitching feet. He rolls his hips into her hand, small and uncertain, like he’s fighting himself. “Yes,” she murmurs, reaffirming. “Let go.”

The weight of the order punches a gasp out of him. His body jerks, and for a few blissful moments, he’s outright humping her hand, face red with naked shame and pleasure. She feels his balls tighten, so she reaches for the washcloth and speeds up, giving him no quarter.

He spurts into her hand, spasming, with a long broken cry, hard enough that some of it overshoots the cloth. Still so pent up. “Good,” she says, holding him loosely as he comes down just to remind him that she can. “That was very nice, was it not?”

His face crumples; he’s panting a little, limp and tired. “Yes,” he manages. “That…y-yes. Thank you. El.”

Something clenches blood-hot in her chest.

She cleans him up, gets the spot on his sheets, tucks him back into his pants. Strokes his hair as he comes down, sleepy after orgasm. “Do you turn down your lamps?” she asks softly, and it takes him a muzzy moment to answer.

“…no. ’S easier.” Quiet for a moment as she folds the blanket around him. “Wish I…could touch you,” he murmurs.

Edelgard bites her lip against a noise. “We’ll see,” she says, and leans down to kiss his temple. “Good night, Dimitri.”

“Good night, El.”

* * *

Hubert is, of course, waiting for her outside, a book tucked under one arm, and when the door closes, he plants his hand on the sigil. She imagines she can hear a soft click from within as Dimitri’s restraints release, letting him find some true comfort.

The soft, distant noises of the palace’s evening stretch between them. Hubert’s studying her through the fall of his hair, but his mouth isn’t thinned. No frown of disapproval. She reaches up to turn his face so she can see him, a soft nudge under his chin that he takes without protest.

“You’re different with him,” he says at last, quiet and thoughtful.

“Does that trouble you?” she asks, concern creeping into her voice.

His mouth quirks in a small smile. “I suppose if you wish to punish me, that would be one way to do it.”

“Tucking you in and kissing your forehead? Bringing you chicken soup?” He makes a faintly disgruntled noise, so she pulls him down by the cravat and goes on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

“This is happening,” he observes. “Whatever this will be between you and him.”

“I…suppose so,” she admits, and puts her face into his sleeve. Why did they all have to be so _tall?_ If she had any sense, she’d have taken, say, Bernadetta as a submissive, not these trees. Though it is nice making them kneel. “At least if he continues to allow it.”

“I would be shocked if he didn’t,” Hubert says, like it’s so obvious as to be taken for granted. She looks up at him, puzzled. “He is desperate for you. Enough to let pride and freedom fall to the wayside. It’s quite obvious.”

“He’ll probably have another fit about it,” she mumbles.

“Perhaps. It would be informative if he didn’t. Regular food and sleep do seem to be good for his health.”

Edelgard feels her lips quirk in a smile. “Thank you for those words, Hubert. No doubt I shall have need to remind you of them.”

Two disgruntled noises in one night. She’s doing quite well with her Hubert. “Come,” she says, and turns to walk briskly down the hall. “Attend me. I need to ride a man’s face, and that one’s not tame enough.”

“Are you thinking of testing that?” he asks as he falls into step just behind her and to her right, cape swirling.

“I…yes. Perhaps not immediately. But it’s a question that must be answered if things keep on, is it not?”

“There are plenty of uses for a bound man,” Hubert says, waving a hand. “You need not meet his every whim, no matter how he wishes to touch you.”

“Attempting to lead me by my pride, Hubert?” Edelgard says mildly. “Shall I put you on voice restrictions for the evening, then?”

“I would prefer some chicken soup,” he answers, dour. “But if I have incurred your wrath, please feel free to execute me.”

“Perhaps if you are very good,” Edelgard answers with menace in her voice, “you shall earn a little death.”

* * *

No word of a fit comes from Dimitri’s doctor. Only a few days of quiet melancholy. Hours staring out his window. Reading between the lines, Edelgard suspects the doctor’s taken to spending time with him regularly, lest he be lonely.

A week or two pass before Edelgard brings the question up with Hubert again. Her work continues. She takes a long day with Ferdinand on matters of education. Dimtiri’s pile of notes thickens, grows more organized. Hubert arranges for one of his inner circle of intelligence operatives to meet with him regularly and keep an eye on his work. She visits Dimitri a few times, listens to him ruminate on the Agarthan threat, still bound and muzzled and accepting it without a struggle. Holds him, plays with him, watches his eye turn wistful as he pulls at his bonds, like it wounds him that he can’t touch her. But he does not voice it again.

“How much longer,” she wonders aloud over breakfast, “is it reasonable to maintain this? Dimitri’s in our circle of intelligence. We’re—intimate. We’ve unshackled him before, albeit briefly, and he caused no difficulty. I admit that I am beginning to feel a little absurd, to trust him with all these other things but not with his hands unbound.”

Hubert sets his coffee cup down with a clink. “Trusting him with intelligence, especially given his confinement, and trusting him with your person are two very different matters. We know his physical capabilities and the depth of his anger. A few weeks of meek behavior is no proof that he would not take any chance to revenge himself upon you.”

“Then we find that proof.” Edelgard lifts her chin. “I do not fear him, you know. There’s no reason to remove his restraints. I could simply deactivate them during a visit. We could even do so after the door is closed, so that he does not have a chance to bolt.”

Hubert’s lips thin. “He’ll know it’s a test. He may be a painfully straightforward man, but even he must comprehend that behaving well the first time we unleash him will keep us off guard.”

“If you’re not in the room, he’ll feel less watched,” Edelgard contemplates. “And you’ll be able to activate the restraints immediately if necessary.”

“If he does turn aggressive…”

“I’m hardly defenseless, even given his strength. I’m not planning to let him kill me. And I think, at this point, that’s fairly unlikely.”

“Do you,” Hubert says darkly.

“As you’ve said, he’s painfully straightforward. There are some who would use an offer of intimacy as a way to win my trust, so that they might stab me as we slumber together. But this is Dimitri, not that Leclerc fellow.”

“He’s no fool. He could adapt to his situation. And he is still obsessed with revenge. That’s clear enough from my agent’s conversations with him.”

“He’s focused on the Agarthans.” Edelgard takes a long drink of her tea. “And I’ve not sensed any of his old hatred for me when we’re together. Not since…well. Since I told him everything. And especially since we moved him. Thank you again for the window, by the way.”

Hubert inclines his head without word, still on edge. “He’s fast.”

“I’ll give you a verbal signal, should I sense danger. I’ll allow that he might surprise me, but he wears his emotions plain.”

“I again come to regret not removing him when it would have been convenient,” Hubert sighs. “You’ve decided you need to do this, haven’t you?”

Edelgard looks down at her teacup, her hands. “Call it curiosity if you need to.”

Hubert rumbles disapproval. “Master the spell to activate his restraints first. I will of course be on hand, but the more security, the better. And if he misbehaves, I am loath to give him another chance.”

She’s close to mastery, she knows. The formula’s in her head, properly ordered. It’s just a matter of drilling it up to casting speed. “Very well.”

* * *

The next time Edelgard visits Dimitri, it’s early enough in the evening that the sky still lingers ghostly blue, and Hubert is deathly silent in her wake, vibrating with tension. “It’s just me,” she calls into the speaking-tube by the heavy door. “Is this a bad time?”

“Of course not,” comes Dimitri’s voice from within, after a pause, a little tinny. “Let me put down my tea.” She hums acknowledgement. A few shuffles. A soft clink. “I’m ready.”

Edelgard reaches over and casts the spell, slotting it into the circle inscribed in the wall beneath the speaking-tube. The circle merely transmits the spell, letting it pass through the wall to work at a distance and without line of sight. The same spell cast simply from her hand could activate them again once she’s inside and he’s unbound. A variant on the circle shuts them down, releasing him.

Hubert slides noiselessly out of sight as the guard opens the heavy door and she passes within. The slam rings loud behind her. The bolts grind home.

Dimitri’s sitting at the table, as usual, perched on his chair so the restraints can close with ease, with a mostly-empty cup of chamomile tea sitting next to some scattered notes and—Edelgard blinks, trying to make sense of the crumpled cloth. “Is that…”

“Ah—please pay that no heed.” He ducks his head.

“You sew?” It doesn’t look like much. A scattering of heavy stitches on a bit of fabric. A few broken needles sit in a saucer.

“I…used to. Mercedes taught me a little, at school. More as a way to practice being less clumsy than to make anything in particular. I wasn’t very good, but now I’m rather worse.”

“I see.” She touches it lightly. Well, the fabric’s barely torn—that’s a good sign for him, isn’t it? Then she reaches for him instead, carding her fingers idly through his hair. He bows into it for a few breaths, then peers up at her through his still-ragged bangs. They really should get him a haircut one of these days.

“What brings you tonight?” he asks quietly.

“You.” She picks up a strand, twists it, smooths it back down. “I’d like to try something new.”

He makes a questioning noise, face heating slightly. “Do I get to know what?”

“Something you’ve been asking after for a while. Even if not always in words.” She takes a step back, takes a breath, and calls up the spell. The deactivation circle is slower to form, since she hadn’t drilled it as much as the other one, and there’s a moment when his eye widens over the bars of the muzzle, a shaky inhale of surprise, before it flares and takes hold.

“Y-you,” he starts, and slowly brings his hands to his sides like he isn’t quite sure he’s allowed. Then reaches up to the muzzle. It hadn’t opened, and she realizes it’s because the spell simply released the magic holding it closed. He slides one side back: it retracts into the frame over his cheeks to bare his mouth. Then the other, fumbling. “Are you sure?” he asks, cautious.

“Yes.” She keeps her voice level. “It seems absurd to carry on like this when I trust you.”

Something flickers in his gaze, and he stands, slow and careful. Reaches out a hand, the blue-gray of the deactivated cuff glinting in the light of his dozen lamps, and she takes it, sliding their fingers together. He takes a step closer. She can feel the heat of his body. One big scarred hand grazes lightly up her arm. She lifts her chin, staring steadily up at him.

The backs of his fingers. That’s all he touches her with at first. The point of her shoulder, the side of her throat. The tendrils of hair that fall loose from her bun. The curve of her cheek. His face is calm, his eye half-lidded, but he’s breathing a little fast through parted lips, and tension bubbles between them, makes goosebumps prickle up her arm in the wake of his knuckles.

“Hubert’s waiting outside with his hand on the switch,” Dimitri murmurs, like it isn’t even a question, and lets go of her hand that he’s holding.

Edelgard blinks, willing herself not to react. “You don’t know that.”

“You know you can’t get an answer that easily.” Back down her arm. The flats of his fingers now, his thumb barely even touching her skin, like he’s testing how to touch somebody without snapping their bones.

“I haven’t asked you a question,” Edelgard says, and lifts her hand to trace the line of his jaw. Not quite within the frame of the muzzle. Not yet.

“Of course you have,” Dimitri says, quietly puzzled, and catches her wrist softly, and puts her hand back at her side.

His grip is loose. The force with which he moves her is inexorable. Her heart hammers in her throat.

“Then give me an answer,” she says. “I didn’t think you to be a tease, Dimitri.”

He leans down and kisses the top of her head, just a little clumsy.

She wonders for a moment if he’s going to roll over and play nice. Which is normally lovely, but it would not mean much right now.

Instead he catches a fistful of her dress with his other hand and rips it aside like so much gauze.

She bares her teeth, the signal on the tip of her tongue, but what comes out instead is a gasp as he catches her around the middle, pinning her arms at her sides. It’s a little crushing, but not to the edge of a real threat, and she digs her heels in, scrabbling for purchase—

There’s no floor.

She struggles, kicking, as he lifts her like she’s a feather pillow, tucked one-armed against his chest—she’s panting, not entirely surprised, but the jolt of adrenaline is hitting her regardless—his other hand, scar-rough, dips between her legs, holding her by the cunt, big and warm and pressed aching-tight against her, and he bends down, teeth bared—

Edelgard yelps, once, short and sharp, a stab of raw fear.

His jaws settle over the side of her neck, but he does not bite down. Almost tender. Like she’s a cub scruffed in a lion’s mouth.

She isn’t _entirely_ sure Hubert could save her by activating the restraints. Some part of her mind is spinning, almost frightened—they could have left the muzzle closed—can he turn one part on at a time, force him to drop her, could he just open her jugular before she’s safe—her life means nothing but she has so much left to do, and it would _destroy_ Hubert—

Still he does not bite down.

“So it is to be a threat, then, Dimi—ahh—“ The hand on her cunt turns over so he can explore her with his knuckles. She’s slick from the raw tension, breathing fast between her teeth. “Gently,” she hisses.

“Really, El?” It’s a low rumble; he barely pulls off her throat to talk, and she tries to squirm back out of range, keep his teeth from her. He nudges her clit, sparking-hard with a knuckle, then finds his mark and buries a big finger in her without hesitation. “Where will your answer be if I submit to you this time?” he asks, right through her breathless gasp. Two fingers, punching out a moan from the sudden and brutal stretch, and she feels a quiver of wild arousal buck through her.

She can’t find a response to that. He finger-fucks her with the raw, clumsy enthusiasm of a virgin, and it’s probably a sheer accident of angle and long fingers that he’s hitting the best spots, and she snarls, struggling. She manages to dig toes into one thigh for leverage. Considers putting power into her voice—but curse it, he’s right. Right and wrenching a gasping moan out of her with just his fingers.

Two fingers, an aching stretch as she wills herself to get wetter, and then he’s just holding her. Bouncing. He’s walking them to the nearest wall, Edelgard almost sideways and squirming in his arms, and she watches his cell recede at a strange angle. Feels the press of the old flocked wallpaper against her half-bare back.

The moment they’re still, his hand moves again, working her open without mercy, and she cries out, open-throated, in some strange relief. Like he hadn’t wanted to jolt her. Hadn’t wanted to risk hurting her for real. She bites whatever’s closest, a mouthful of sleeve and bicep, something mad and giddy churning in her chest, and earns a rumble from deep in his throat.

She _could_ get a foot into his groin, she thinks. Bite him somewhere worse. Try to earn her freedom. But he could snap bones by accident in a misjudged grapple, and he’s being so very careful. Still she squirms gamely—he yanks fingers out of her cunt, hikes her upright, pulls down his own pants, and fumbles for the right angle. She hisses as he gets the head lined up, bracing herself, and they’re almost face to face like this, her pinned in a little bundle against the wall. His gaze is burning intense. But he sees her. Almost through her.

“Here’s your answer,” he growls, and digs wet fingers into her hip as he slams home.

Edelgard _shouts_ , mouth fallen wide, whole body bucking in his arms—he’s too big, too rough and fast, knocking the wind out of her, a sweet raw ache flaring all through her belly—he barely gives her a moment to adjust before setting a punishing pace. She growls, squeezes her legs around him so tight it makes him groan. Back scraping against the old flocked paper. Whole body weight driving his cock mind-numbingly deep. He readjusts, pressing her tighter to the wall, and she finally manages to wrench an arm out of his grip to claw at him.

“Fu-u-uhck, ‘mitri,” she manages. Can barely even speak with each stroke knocking the breath out of her. “This—all you—got? Not going to—snap my neck?”

Something darkens in his eye, and he shoves his head down to kiss her, teeth-scraping, soul-sucking deep as she moans open-throated into his mouth. He rearranges—she’s pinned tight between him and the wall, legs wrapped around his hips, one of his hands holding her up with a bruising-tight grip on her ass, and the other skates up her body to settle at her throat, a loose blood-hot reminder.

“Don’t tell me you’re in a hurry to die,” he says, low and ragged, once he finally lets her up from the kiss.

She gasps for air. “Too much—to do.”

“Do you understand this, El?” The hand at her throat is barely even _touching_ her. Too loose to even risk a bruise as she rocks like a rag doll, pounded into the wall. “Do you hear me?”

“Stah—starting to—get the idea.” She’s got both her hands claws-out in his back. Her nails catch loose thread, drag runs in his shirt, then runs in his skin beneath. It _hurts_ , she thinks vaguely that he’s probably hitting her cervix, but it’s so dizzyingly intense it almost comes out the other end. She probably can’t come like this, but she isn’t sure she wants it to stop. It’s not as if she minds pain.

He clutches her tighter, hips speeding up, face flushed as he buries it in her mussed hair, and she hisses in annoyance. “D—mitri—”

“Don’t worry,” he bites out, and crushes her hips to his, a few painfully deep, rabbit-fast strokes as he rushes to the peak. “I’m not—going easy on you—”

His voice breaks as he comes. She clutches him a little frantic, all four limbs, as his body shakes, as he pulses inside her. His Goddess had _better_ help him if he drops her. But he keeps her up even as he groans with release, face going slack, if nothing else by the sheer weight of his body pinning her to the wall.

“Not done with you,” he pants in her ear, ragged. “Not yet.”

And he lets go of her throat, gets both of those big hands under her ass, and lifts, sliding her bodily up the wall. Edelgard yelps in sheer surprise as her arms are dragged off his shoulders, legs clutching and flailing, and he manages to fold one arm under one of her legs, and she realizes what he’s doing a little late, maybe with one handful of his hair. The frame of the muzzle digs into the tops of her thighs as he leans in and envelops her cunt in wet heat.

“Shit—w-wait—” She scrabbles for purchase, gets her other leg over his shoulders, paws at the wall until she can latch her fingertips into some of the decorative molding near the ceiling. The _ceiling_. If he lifted her much higher, she’d have to worry about her head, but mostly she’s worrying about holding on and keeping her balance as his broad tongue finds her clit.

Well, she thinks dimly, as she hears her shout echo oddly off the nearby ceiling, she really had been close to the edge after all.

* * *

Edelgard comes two more times on Dimitri’s face before he lets her down. He’s artless, eager, barely listening to what direction she manages—she thinks dimly of giving him proper training later and mostly just holds onto his hair and the molding so hard her hands ache, because she’s not sure she can think anymore. She can’t hold herself back. The last orgasm had caught her entirely by surprise, stirred up by the heavy pressure of his tongue, bursting over her like a freak wave, leaving her screaming.

The world sinks, and she tumbles shaky-legged to the carpet, and gets an elbow under her with a soft growl as Dimitri crawls over her, face wet and red-hot. He’s hard again. Of course that’s why he let her down. His hands latch into the remains of her dress, and through the cotton in her head, she hisses, grabs his wrists to hold him back.

“Do you really think,” he says, oddly gentle, and shakes her hands off, and pulls anyway. Threads pop and fray. She tightens her grip, makes him work for it, but she can’t stop him, not when he puts his strength into it.

He might not have yet noticed the slices down her thighs, where they’d cut down to the marrow of her bones, but the scars on her chest, where they’d opened to her heart—those are impossible to miss. His fingers skate around them, flicking away the last of her clothing, and she shivers, makes angry noises between her teeth, and fusses, trying to fend him off.

Dimitri catches one scarred wrist with care, iron grip loose, and pulls it to his mouth to press a slow kiss to the heel of her hand, almost reverent, and she wonders if he’s going to slide under, end this relentless answer he’s giving her. But instead he catches the other, folds them carefully together in one hand, and pulls her close. “I’m still not done with you, you know,” he says. “You haven’t screamed enough.”

“Well, get on with it, then,” she mumbles, flushed, and this time when he slides home, it’s almost like he fits, just so.

She isn’t sure how long he fucks her, there on the floor. She goes from struggling and moaning, to limp and rocking with every stroke, to thrashing full-body as some mad paroxysm grips her. He rearranges her every little while, pinning some bit of her or another in his unbreakable grip, as if seeking something. Legs dragged open. Face ground into the carpet. His favorite, perhaps because it makes her scream the loudest, is when he presses her legs together and folds her in half on her back, driving down with all his strength as the pressure of the position makes him feel even bigger.

Her mind’s white. Her skin is caroling against his. It’s too much, she isn’t sure how much more she can take without going mad, or whether she already has. She soars beyond herself and feels so terrible, inexorably alive.

He finally comes again, clutching her to his chest and dragging her up and down on his cock, and this time it’s with her name on his lips. He holds her as he softens slowly inside her, and she hardly begrudges him that, reeling in silence, like all her self has been blown open, bright and calm.

“Mmuh,” she says eventually, with great gravity, as they start to untangle, sticky. He’s lax now, worn out, and takes a few deep, shaky breaths to steady himself.

Then Dimitri pulls his knees in square, straightens his shoulders, crosses his wrists behind his back, and bows his head.

Edelgard stares at him, a little slack mouthed, as she rolls fucked-out and sweaty on the carpet. Right. He is, she supposes, on his knees. Has been for a bit, the way he’d been holding her.

He waits in silence.

The final sentence, she supposes, of his answer.

“Oh you beautiful fool,” she murmurs, and lifts a hand in a vague wave. “Get the rest of that off and come hold me.”

* * *

There’s a time, sore and exhausted in Dimitri’s arms, when Edelgard’s mind is simply—calm. She’s pulled his hair, put marks on his throat, and now they’re just curled skin to skin on the floor in the wreckage of their clothes, one of her hands holding the base of his neck like an anchor.

He’s settled—a little under, she’d guess. He brushes knuckles over her skin, slow and idle. Her scars, reverently, with a murmur of her name. Moles. Soft spots, the lines of tendons. Brushing off the bits of wallpaper flocking stuck in her back. He’s never touched anybody like this before, she supposes. He’d gone so still, stunned and blissful, when he first felt her skin against his. Not that she hadn’t been a little stunned in turn by the sheer warmth of him, hotter even than Hubert.

“Did I hurt you?” he asks, very soft, when his fingers find darkening red marks on her hip, imprints of his grip.

“Not too much.” She squeezes his neck just lightly. “I could tell how careful you were.”

He rumbles, content, and bundles her a little closer. His hand wanders through her hair, excruciatingly careful. Worries at one spot on her scalp for a little, laying a few locks aside to study it. “Ah,” Edelgard murmurs, tracing where his fingers are. “It still hasn’t faded?”

“It’s faint.”

“That was you,” she says. “When you broke my helmet in the Holy Tomb.” She feels a smile tugging at her lips—somehow now this is just amusing—and catches his hand, pulling it down to a well-healed seam under her ribs. “That’s yours too, from the battle at Garreg Mach.”

He traces it, brow furrowing. “I…hadn’t thought I’d gotten through your armor. My lance shattered on you, I remember that.”

“It hit a plate. Tore the webbing and drove it into my skin. You certainly would have broken through any lesser mail.” And here she is, using that fantastically strong arm as her pillow. He’s quiet, tracing the scar with care, then pulling her close to kiss her forehead. “Mm,” she says, and touches his chin, guiding his unmuzzled mouth closer. “Let me enjoy this.”

Settled, weary, no longer proving his point, his kisses are hesitant, awkward, letting her lead. She wonders if that had been his first, there with her pinned against the wall. It’s not like she’d so much as held somebody’s hand back at school—somehow she doubts he’d gotten any further.

They kiss for a long time. They unstick themselves eventually, seeking water. Moving makes it harder to ignore the stinging soreness in Edelgard’s cunt, but she stands stubbornly, jelly-kneed and wincing. Water. A few lumps of pure sugar from his tea service, heedless of the taste, because she’s too tired to pretend she doesn’t need them. The garderobe, and a chance to wipe herself clean, including what’s dribbled down her thigh. Hubert’s tea had _better_ work.

“I’m not lying on the floor anymore,” she says when she comes out, then claims a perch on his bed.

He acknowledges that without words, and comes like he means to kneel at her feet, and she grabs for his wrist instead. “Up here,” she says. “Stay close.”

He does. He curls around her, and she finds herself counting his scars in return. She hadn’t seen his back before. It’s laced with what she can only guess are whip scars, poorly healed. And something much older, heavily knit, like he’d been laid open to the bone. He goes still as she traces that one, breathing a little shakily.

“Dimitri?” she asks quietly.

“It’s…still there?”

“Yes.” She touches one end, then the other. “Some of the welts pulled at it, but it’s too deep to be lost that easily.” She almost doesn’t want to ask, but the curiosity pulls at her. “Was it from Duscur?”

He shivers, curls tighter around her. “When I—” He stops, like his voice has strangled in his throat, and she pets his hair. “Stepped in,” he manages eventually.

Dedue, she thinks, and doesn’t voice it. No need to salt a raw wound. She tugs gently at his hair, his shoulder, coaxing him to roll onto his back. It’s no tiny prison cot he’s been given, but it’s not particularly large, and he’s a big sprawl of a man, so she simply climbs on top of him, and he folds his arms carefully around her, burning warm. He’s softer than he looks, chest a comfortable mattress of muscle, and she hardly need fuss about whether he can bear her weight. Not after _that_ display.

“Back on the roof,” he says, very quietly, after a long silence. “You said…I think. I don’t even know if I remember clearly.”

“Mm?” she says, face in his pectoral.

“That…death was not the only path open to me. That you’d send me into exile if I wanted, or let me make war against the Agarthans with you. Is that—do I even remember correctly?”

“You…probably do.” She does pick her head up then, pillowing it on one arm instead of his chest so she can look at him a little. “Do you want…?”

“I’ve been thinking,” he says. “Would you still offer me those things?”

Edelgard takes a deep, slow breath to pull herself into focus. “Let me…lay things out.” He nods, small and wordless. “As you’ve probably guessed, Hubert is concerned that I’m emotionally compromised by you. I have given him my word that anything offered to you beyond our personal relationship and a comfortable but secure captivity is at his discretion.”

“I…see.” He closes his eye for a moment. “Then…I suppose there is little point in asking.”

“I would not say there is no point,” she says, with caution. “He’s warming up to you, although he still has concerns about both your stability and whether you could be trusted at my back.” She pauses, blinks. “I suppose there’s probably some terrible innuendo that could be made about that, given what just happened. Though you did not in fact carry out a rear assault.”

Dimitri _giggles_. It jostles her; he’s snorting with it, face cracked on a heedless smile. “Rear…rear assault,” he echoes.

“To my great relief, I should be clear. I don’t have experience in that department and you’re quite large.”

His big hand ghosts over her ass, painfully gently, and he’s still giggling. Oh dear. That might last a while. “I don’t know if I’m stable,” he admits, still snorting every few words. “The silliest thing is, El, I—please don’t exile me. There would be nothing for me. Not even this.” His hand moves up to her face, knuckles brushing over her cheek so light they almost tickle. “Goddess help me, your cage is comfortable, and I can almost trust myself when I’m bound.”

She slides her hand into his, careful, and he holds it like it’s porcelain.

“There is a part of me,” he continues, soft and frank, “that just wants to crawl into it forever. Rip away the very last remnants of who I was, what I wanted, and be nothing but your plaything. Just a…a creature. Without a self that could suffer or a will that could be stifled.”

Edelgard feels ice stab down her spine. She ignores the soreness lingering in her cunt so she can pick herself up and straddle his waist, looking down at him properly. “I wouldn’t want that.” It bursts out of her, raw. She doesn’t know how to temper it. Nor does she want to.

His hand twitches in hers, once, where she’s pinned it to the mattress as she rose. His eye widens, searching hers. “Then…then what do you want?”

“I could keep you. As long as you will be kept. My collar is yours if that is the path you choose.” His breath hitches at that, a soft noise in the back of his throat, and she takes a moment to regret saying it in passing like that. Yet it’s true. No point in pretending it isn’t by now. “But I have no wish to cling to your empty shell.”

He lifts his other hand, hovering along her bare arm like he doesn’t quite dare touch her. “There’s already so little left of me.”

“I know. Yet you still have a will. For you to lose that…” She bites her lip hard, almost shivering, then forces herself to be earnest. It’s only fair. He always is. “I care for you too much, and respect you too much, to want to see that.”

He goes still, stunned.

“You say it is only a part of you that wants such a thing,” she goes on. “And if being kept is a comfort instead of self-annihilation, you shall have it. So what is your will, Dimitri?”

“If I could, if Hubert allows…” He swallows, hard enough that she can see his throat bob. “I would raise my lance against the Agarthans. If…no. There is nothing else I can do for the people of Faerghus. Or Duscur.” He swallows again, a crinkle to his lip like he’s biting it. “If I could have taken my place, the first oath I would have sworn would be to their wellbeing and protection. But I lost that chance. Perhaps I should remain dead to them. Better than knowing their prince is a traitor.”

The word sinks between them like a stone.

“And what part of yourself does that annihilate?” Edelgard asks, smoothing a thumb over his bitten lip. His brow furrows, grief darkening his face.

“One that failed. That died in Fhirdiad, to pass from history. That perhaps was always doomed to fail.”

“So fatalistic, Dimitri,” she murmurs, not even sure what’s aching quietly in her chest.

“Haah. What kind of ruler would I have been? A soft-hearted, temperamental, submissive king. A mad king. For a country of a dozen ills even before Cornelia’s ascent.”

She puffs air between her lips. “What, are you so caught up insulting yourself that you’d think a hard-hearted emperor a better deal?”

He tilts his head slightly, looking up at her with a strange, distant regard, and settles a hand between her breasts. Over her scars. It covers her whole sternum, and she feels her breath rattle unexpectedly beneath it. “You can soften your heart, El. Yet when I harden mine, it leads only to a meaningless mound of corpses.”

“I can’t, though,” she says. Tries to say. It comes out a far smaller croak than she would have liked. “And I’ve…piled up. So many.” She swallows hard, clears her throat, finds her voice. “We will not be deciding this now,” she hedges, smoothing a hand over his chest in return, and he nods almost like it’s a relief. “Hubert will take his time to test you, no doubt. But it would be a pleasure to do battle against the Agarthans with you. And it should be easy enough to conceal your identity.”

Dimitri lets out a slow breath, seeming satisfied with that, and spreads his hand over the small of her back. “I…refuse to fight my people. The innocent, those still loyal to Faerghus. That is…one thing I cannot sacrifice. Not as a prince, but as a man.”

“That’s only reasonable. I will not ask that of you.” She settles back down, wrapping one arm around his shoulders, and traces his throat with the other, running over the marks she’d left earlier.

“Do you,” Dimitri says slowly. “Need…an answer. About.” He swallows hard; she can see it bob in his throat. “Your collar.”

“No. I need no answer on that, now or ever.” She smiles into his chest, wry. “I had hoped, perhaps, to make a more graceful offer. And not quite so soon. Ask when you are ready, Dimitri. Not before.”

“…ready,” he echoes quietly. “How could I even know?”

Edelgard takes a deep breath, lets it out, and turns her face up to kiss the hollow of his throat. “When you are sure, in your heart, that it will strengthen the person that you are becoming, and not reduce it.”

His own deep breath stirs her, and he kisses the top of her head. “I understand.”


	4. Trust

**IV — TRUST**

Sundays, relatively free of imperial duties, Edelgard trains until her legs are jelly, until she’s flattened Caspar or Ferdinand or both a dozen times, and once she’s washed off the sweat and had a nibble and the afternoon light stretches golden, she goes to Dimitri. She’s warm-bellied from battle, and with any luck he’s basking clear-minded in the light. Like a lizard, she thinks, and feels her mouth crimp in a smile as she pads up the stairs in the east wing.

The door guard stands at nervous attention, and the circle linked to the restraints glows white. Activated.

She cocks an eyebrow at the guard, who stiffens further and murmurs, “Ah, the Marquis is with him, Your Majesty.”

“I see.” Edelgard feels a coil of uncertainty in her gut and leans over to press her ear to the speaking-tube. She isn’t _entirely_ unaware of Hubert’s particular bad habit of disobedience. Would he dare—

She catches a low rumble through the speaking-tube. Dimitri. “…surprised you haven’t arranged my suicide already.”

Her hand is on the heavy door latch by the time she hears Hubert respond, a tension-laden drawl. “It was sorely tempting. But it would have been difficult to hide from Her Majesty.” Edelgard stills, breathing shallow through her teeth, and does not let go of the latch. “Usually when I kill behind her back,” Hubert continues, “it’s not somebody she’s particularly attached to. Simply a problem that needs to be solved efficiently.” _Sometimes_ , Edelgard thinks, annoyed. At least once the fallout had been far less efficient to deal with than the alternative. “Unfortunately, she’s attached to you. Through my own failing, I admit. But here we are.”

A brief silence. A rustle. Dimitri answers, quiet. “You’re…still considering it, aren’t you?”

“If you are to become the blade that takes Her Majesty’s life, I will risk her collar and every shred of her regard to stop you. Never mind my life, which is nothing next to those. So yes, I think we should discuss this.”

Edelgard presses her other hand over her rattling heart, barely breathing, and still doesn’t let go of the latch.

“I hear you’ve let go of your absurd delusion about the Tragedy,” Hubert continues.

“Yes. I was…yes.”

“Yet it is no delusion that Her Majesty started this war. The occupation of Faerghus, the deaths of the Professor and Mr. Molinaro. How can you not hate her when you can lay those at her feet?”

Edelgard digs her nails into her palm. Stills her own breathing so she can hear Dimitri’s speed ragged through the echo of the speaking tube.

“Because,” he starts. “Because she has made mistakes. With those who slither. And because I.” His voice cracks a little. “I love her.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” Hubert says dryly, “that’s been the case for some time. Including when you were all too ready to rip her head off.”

Silence stretches.

Edelgard jams one knuckle between her teeth.

“It won’t look like a suicide if you slit my throat,” Dimitri says, so quiet and resigned she almost can’t hear him, and Edelgard stares wide-eyed at the wall and grips the latch to his cell so hard her knuckles ache.

“Please,” Hubert says, sounding almost amused. “I’m no amateur. I know a dozen ways to kill without leaving a wound that will be visible once your skull’s bashed in. Your methods do make for a delightfully easy coverup.”

Dimitri laughs, soft and scattered. “At least I can make something easy.”

“You seem oddly at peace with leaving Her Majesty behind.” There’s some quiet edge in Hubert’s voice now, and Edelgard remembers to breathe as her vision spots in the corners. If he’s still talking, if he’s still trying to tease something out—but he could kill him in an instant, and every silence could be…

She might owe Hubert an apology for making him listen to the inverse of this last week. Her own life in Dimitri’s hands.

“I can’t stop you,” Dimitri says, still with breath and life in him. “I can’t make you believe anything, or give my words weight for you. If this is how I die after everything…” Another huff of laughter. “I hope she will not miss me for long.”

An answering laugh from Hubert, low and sharp. “So you offer me your life in an attempt to convince me of your meaning. Do remember that a thing that has no value to you is a poor offer. And a thing I had considered taking anyway is an insulting one.”

“Yet what else do I have left?” Dimitri answers. “Nothing but the naked truth. I do not want to kill her.”

“But do you want her to rule Fódlan?” There’s a soft ting of metal. Edelgard wonders what Hubert’s tapping with his knife. “Understand that on the path she walks, there is nothing in between. Not for those who cannot stand idly by. And you insist upon playing the noble, even in shackles.”

There is a long, long silence.

Edelgard forces some deep, careful breaths. Pries her hand off the latch and shakes it out. Waits for an answer just as if she and Hubert stood shoulder by shoulder. Her heart’s still hammering—she’s almost annoyed that Dimitri had brought such tremendous a word as _love_ to bear. _Again_. When he’s reasonably sober, no less. Such an inconsiderate man. The trembling thing in her ribs quivers and hollers and wants to break down the door and mantle around him so that nobody might take him from her.

“I see the Fódlan she wants to build,” Dimitri says at last. “She’s painted it in her words for me. It would be a good world. Prosperous. Happy, even, if it could be built without wholesale slaughter. I fear how that slaughter may undermine it. I fear that she may be callous if she does not have good advisors. But…” He’s quiet for a moment. “You seem to work so hard to take the cruelty upon yourself. You do not want her to be callous either, do you?”

She hears one hiss of breath from between Hubert’s teeth. Then silence, brief, telling.

“I serve everything of Her Majesty with everything that I am,” Hubert says, low, an uncharacteristic thread of raw passion in his voice. “Including her vision. If I did not believe this land needs a ruler who thinks of the future, who builds a Fódlan free of the exploitation and suffering rampant in this world, I would not be where I am. But such things cannot be done without slaughter. A rotten foundation must be torn out before anything lasting may be built, and those who cling to those broken stones will have to be removed. And if that includes you, no matter how much you may love each other, I will see it done. For I know it’s what she would want.”

“I cling to nothing,” Dimitri says, slow and weary. “I am powerless to save anyone, in the end. And killing her would only make things worse. If you were to loosen my leash, I’d want revenge on Thales and his conspirators. And…to stay with her, at least for a time. Nothing more.”

“I will take that under consideration,” Hubert says, after a pause, and there’s a rustle. Putting the knife away, Edelgard can only hope.

“She’s lucky to have you,” Dimitri says.

A huff from Hubert. “Enjoy breathing. For now.” More rustling. Brisk footsteps. A double-knock sounds on the doorframe.

Edelgard peels herself off the wall and steps a few paces back. The guard, casting her one uncertain glance, undoes the door in answer to Hubert’s signal. He paces out, mouth set in a frown, and the door is closing behind him by the time he sees her.

Hubert freezes for a moment, eyes a little wide. Then bows, one hand over his heart. “Shall I remand myself to the execution grounds, Your Majesty?”

“I’ll commute it for the time being,” she says, and taps his forehead. “I am no longer a little girl, you know. I am capable of handling things.”

“I should hope so, given our recreational activities.” He straightens, then says, unusually soft and frank, “But if you and he become enemies, yes, I would take the disposal of that upon myself.”

 _I could do it_ , she wants to say, and thinks of the way Dimitri had said that he loves her, and something gnarls in her throat. Damn it. Such inconsiderate men. Both of them. Instead she swallows and finds words that don’t strangle her. “Will you allow him to help us?”

“His troubled mind is still a concern. But I shall think on it.” He bows again. “Please excuse me, Your Majesty. I have other matters to attend to.”

She brushes her fingers over his collar, and he holds still long enough for her to kiss his forehead. “He is right, you know. I am lucky beyond belief.”

Hubert makes one small noise in the back of his throat. And cannot very well say something sharp-edged and stalk away from _her_ , now can he?

* * *

The next morning, there is a plain wooden box beneath Edelgard’s stack of briefings. She arches an eyebrow at Hubert as he sets down her tea.

“It seemed as good a time as any for you to know that is available,” he says, without further elaboration.

The briefings are on top, and Hubert sets nothing out without meaning, so she accepts that, puts aside her curiosity, and works through the business first. Then, full of tea and breakfast cookies, prepared for court, she slides her plate aside and replaces it with the box. It’s heavy. Not locked, only a simple latch.

She braces herself for some prank or another and opens it.

A heavy collar sits on a fold of cloth. The blue-gray of agarthium, edges rounded and polished, the inside lined for comfort. Two little keys sit inside its circle, and there’s a spiderweb of spell-lines etched along it.

“I had it made with the rest of his restraints,” Hubert says. “I’d considered linking it to the spell with the others, but it wasn’t strictly necessary, so I decided to keep it aside for you. It can, of course, be enchanted to bind him as you wish.”

She runs her fingers over it, feeling her mouth water. Swallows once, hard. “I’d like a ring for a leash added, if that’s possible. It’s pleasant to have him in hand.”

“I’ll see it done.”

Edelgard looks up at him. Her Hubert, breakfast coffee staining the corners of his mouth, adding another cramped shorthand note to his to-do list. _Modify collar for leash._ A brief, half-lidded flick of his eye between the note, the collar, her hand resting near her teacup.

She touches the chain on her neck where a little key rests. The one her father had pressed into her chubby hand all those years ago. Hubert had grown out of that professional collar, of course, and many more, a new one every year until his late teens. She’s never kept his collar locked since the Insurrection, since he reswore to her and her alone, Vestra history be damned. But she’s never lost the key.

He reaches for his coffee again, and that familiar little line of annoyance forms between his shaved eyebrows when he finds the cup empty.

Edelgard stops breathing for a few seconds.

Then she stands, abruptly, rounding the table.

“Your Majesty,” he says, a touch of surprise in his voice, before she catches him by his own collar. He’s still in his undershirt: the elegant black band sits exposed, rather than the usual austere peek through his tall shirt-collar. His mouth goes just a touch slack, and at one tug, he slides out of his chair and folds to his knees.

She jams her legs on either side of his bony shoulders and keeps a solid grip on his collar and holds him. Not long. Just until he finally lets out a deep breath, slow and shaky, and settles.

“Your Majesty,” he murmurs again, quiet.

“I do love you, you know,” she says, voice rough. “You are mine. My first and always.”

He folds one hand in the small of his back, posture-perfect with his head bowed against her belly, but in a moment of profound weakness, rests the other on her ankle, holding onto her in return. “And I am ever at your service.”

* * *

The plain wooden box lives on the heavy imperial desk in Edelgard’s private chambers. Papers, inevitably, pile atop it.

Hubert swears thrice, once at knifepoint, that he will not kill Dimitri without notifying Edelgard first, and she accepts that oath by tracing the knife over the rest of his lanky body and scratching her mark feather-light on his ass, readily healed by the morrow.

The two men meet a few more times, from what Edelgard can gather, quietly in Dimitri’s cell.

She spends a leisurely evening with Dimitri cuffed, wrist to ankle now that she’s more proficient with the spell, shivering as she coaxes him up to the edge of orgasm and leaves him hanging, three, four, five times, until he manages to beg.

The beast in Arundel’s skin visits, and she keeps him far from the east wing, placates him with little matters. The beast in Arundel’s skin leaves.

She ravages Hubert with a cane until he’s shaking and clinging to her legs, because he is always so terribly on edge when he has to deal with those who slither. And, really, so is she.

Four more broken needles accumulate in Dimitri’s tea saucer. The autumn nights grow longer. He finds space for another lamp.

Hubert marks a line on her calendar for a meeting with ‘the guest in the old parlor,’ and for all the times they’ve both visited Dimitri, Hubert’s never scheduled it with her. She feels a strange edge of anticipation as they walk the quiet path to the east wing. Hubert’s silent, a knife-sharp focus in his eyes.

He doesn’t activate the restraints before unlatching the door.

Dimitri blinks up at them in surprise, caught entirely off guard by the two of them filling the open doorway as he sits unbound. He winces and sets half of another broken needle into the saucer. “Come…come in?” he blurts.

The guard heaves the door shut behind their backs. A clang. Dimitri sucks a drop of blood off his fingertip and sets his sewing aside.

“It’s time to settle a matter you’ve raised,” Hubert says.

Dimitri’s eye searches between the two of them, a little wide, and then he stands, slow and cautious. “Would you, ah. Like some tea? While we talk. I know you prefer coffee, but I have some of the Hresvelg blend on hand, for El…”

Edelgard blinks, then inclines her head. “That sounds lovely, thank you.”

Hubert gives a thin smile. “Amuse yourself, then, if you so wish.”

Dimitri flushes, brief but noticeable, and goes to heat the kettle. “Let’s talk once we have tea,” Edelgard says, and settles in her usual seat, the one opposite Dimitri’s. Which leaves Hubert at ends, as there’s only two chairs.

Hubert, apparently in a mood for gentle needling, settles that by taking Dimitri’s chair. And Dimitri, calm but watchful, doesn’t protest. Simply serves with painstaking care, china delicate in his big scarred hands. Two lumps of sugar for her. None for Hubert at his raised palm.

It’s mid-morning. Edelgard doesn’t usually make it down here this early, given her busy schedule, and the room is shining with sunlight, brighter than she’s ever seen it. Dimitri glows white-gold against the barred expanse of the window in usual plain shirt and trousers, darkened only by his eyepatch, the open frame of his muzzle, the bands of metal at his wrists. He glances at Hubert in his seat, looks to Edelgard, and steps a little closer to her.

“Yes,” Edelgard says simply, gesturing open-palmed to the soft carpet.

Dimitri kneels with a quiet breath of relief, kisses her hand, and settles with his hands behind his back.

“Well, isn’t that a pleasant sight,” Hubert says, and sips his tea.

“You’re being awfully cryptic, dear Hubert,” Edelgard says. “Why don’t you give us the agenda for this little meeting?”

“Your Majesty,” he says, wounded, thunder stolen.

She smiles over her teacup and lets her other hand settle in the sunlit gold of Dimitri’s hair. “You suppose that we are wondering why you have gathered us here today, then?”

“It doesn’t work when you do it,” Hubert bites out, a little disgruntled, and Dimitri laughs softly. “Very well. Dimitri, don’t get too excited about what I’m about to say. I must stress that we are not yet ready to move against those who slither in the dark. Even if Her Majesty were to abandon her path tomorrow, which she is _not_ , we need to know more before we can strike.”

 _We_ , Edelgard thinks, and moves her hand to cup the nape of Dimitri’s neck, holding him gently as he looks up at Hubert with cautious hope. “I understand,” he says. “We…cannot risk the javelins. And it doesn’t seem like you know for sure what will kill them.”

“I do not,” Hubert says thinly. “To my dismay, let me assure you. And if you compromise this operation, I will have no choice but to silence you.”

“So you keep saying,” Dimitri says with a faint smile, bowing his head, and Hubert looks faintly annoyed. A shiver runs through Dimitri’s body as he lifts his head again, a thrum of energy like Edelgard hasn’t felt in a while. “But you…you would have me join you?”

“At my specific direction.” Hubert taps his chin. “We have gone to lengths to keep your presence concealed from the Agarthans, and it seems we have so far been successful. You may be one man, but your prowess in battle is undeniable. I’m considering options to provide you with Areadbhar, should the opportunity arise to do so without arousing suspicion. If Cornelia could send it to an Imperial facility for examination, for example. You would be a powerful secret weapon when the time comes.”

Dimitri takes a deep, slow breath. Then a second. Another subliminal thrum. “Thales’ head.”

“I shall race you for it,” Edelgard says. “He owes us both much. But if I take it, let it count for all our dead.”

“And if I take it,” Dimitri rumbles, “it shall be in your name as well as mine, and he will rue the day he ever touched our families or brought sorrow upon you. In this, your enemies are my enemies.” He takes another breath, steadying, then looks up at Hubert, eye burning. “And your caution is my caution. Give the word and I shall strike.”

Hubert nods, smile like a knife. “It may be while. But there will be blood.” He stands, flicking his cape, and reaches into his pocket to pull out a ring of keys on a chain. “I will not let you move freely, and I am not yet convinced of your commitment to Her Majesty’s greater goals and necessities. At least you seem content to be kept, since that is where you must stay.” Hubert rounds the table. Dimitri swallows, studying him with upturned gaze, and his hands twitch behind him, once, then still. “However, you may consider this a token.”

Hubert steps fully into Dimitri’s space, looming over him where he kneels, and catches the straps of the muzzle, bowing Dimitri’s head and brushing his hair aside to bare the magically reinforced lock.

“Your Majesty,” he says, inclining his head to Edelgard. “He can be muzzled again at your whim, of course, but would you care to remove this?”

Edelgard feels her heart swell in her chest, and cannot entirely keep a fond smile from her lips, but what she says is, “Only if he shaves.”

“Yes,” Dimitri mumbles. “Of course I will. Please.”

Hubert hands her a particular key, the ring hanging heavy from her hand, and the click of the lock seems strangely loud, and Dimitri lets out a shaky breath as the straps open. She hands Hubert back the keys, and they peel the muzzle off in concert.

Dimitri straightens, breathing fast and unsteady and looking a little stunned, and Edelgard realizes it’s the first time she’s seen him bare-faced since the Battle of Garreg Mach. Maybe it’s just the patchy bits of beard following the stripes where he couldn’t shave, or the imprints left on his skin, but he does look—older. His jaw stronger, his face a little more filled out. She traces his cheekbone, and one of his hands twitches behind him.

“You can move as you wish,” she says, more than a little fond—she hadn’t even told him otherwise.

He skates fingertips over his own face, slow and hesitant, and then scratches his jaw furiously.

* * *

They finish their tea, chatting in frustration about what is and isn’t known of the Agarthans, and when Edelgard stands to leave, Dimtiri—still kneeling, still occasionally scratching some patch of his face—says, a little hesitant, “Would you mind staying, El?”

She trades glances with Hubert, feels her mouth twist in dismay. “I can’t for long. But if you want to speak a little more…”

“Go shave,” says Hubert, sounding very much as if he’d like to add _for fuck’s sake_. “We’ll discuss her next meeting outside, and she’ll rejoin you for a time.”

So they do—pregaming all the details about the appointment and replacement of Hevring magistrates she’s been managing—and when she comes back in, still not bothering to engage the restraints, Dimitri is damp-faced and waiting on his knees. There are still deep imprints on his face, red stripes, but those will probably fade with time, and at least he’s shaved and lotioned and perhaps less itchy.

She sighs fondly, comes up to run hands through his hair. His face looks longer without the muzzle in the way, his lips singularly tempting, and she smooths a thumb over them. “I can’t take my time with you. I’d like to—perhaps later—oh, no. Tomorrow night, I think.”

“It’s all right,” he says, relaxing into her touch. “I just…” He swallows, looking up at her with a hint of nerves. “There was an answer. That we put off. Or rather—you told me to ask when I was ready—”

“You—“ She feels the realization hit her like a blow, and heaves a deep breath, hands tightening in Dimitri’s hair for a moment before she pries them loose, pulls back just a little so she can see his face better. “Dimitri…”

He swallows hard, eye wide, and nods. “Yes. I…oh, goddess.” He buries his face in his hands for a moment, ears pink. “I don’t know how to…you know what I’m asking,” he mumbles.

“Let me hear it,” Edelgard says, careful to keep her voice light. She hovers a hand over his head, almost touching him, not quite daring. “Let me hear it in your own words. For I will never, _never_ take your service on an assumption. Not anybody’s, and especially not yours.”

He heaves a deep breath of his own, and lowers his hands, palms up on his knees like he’s holding something fragile. Two breaths. Three. Until he can hold her gaze, steady, kneeling but unbowed. “I want to wear your collar, El.” His voice comes slow, raw, utterly frank. “I want to be yours, if you’ll have me. Because I love you. Because I trust you. To not use this to undermine me. To not want my empty shell. To not let me wither. And…and because here in your keeping, I’ve known happiness, and I want to give you what I can in return.”

Edelgard’s mouth has gone dry, she’s realized, her heart pounding. She’s never been _asked_. Nothing like this. She can hold her composure through battle, court, cruelty, betrayal, grief—how does he keep shattering it? “Will it bring you strength?” she manages, rasping.

“Yes,” he says, and he’s actually less croaky then she is, damn it.

She clears her throat. It helps a little. “Will you give me your submission, your service, and your obedience? And will you tell me if you no longer wish to be mine, and take yourself back should I release you or break your trust?”

“Yes,” he says, and bows, deep, not quite to the floor. “Yes.”

“Then yes. I will give you my collar.” She clears her throat again, gathering herself. “And let me be clear, Dimitri. This is…this is an honor. Beyond the telling.” He straightens, wide-eyed, and she runs a hand down his smooth, naked face. “I am not sure I even can comprehend what this means to you to offer this. To trust me. I can only thank you.”

“I…” He stutters to a halt, reaching for her, and she slides down in one smooth motion, straddling his waist to wrap her arms around his shoulders and kiss him, deep and hungry and adoring.

* * *

Hubert’s standing a few paces down the hallway when she leaves, tall and silent, and she comes up to him, looks up at him a little wide-eyed, and blurts, “He asked for my collar.”

“And you will give it?” he murmurs. There’s something quiet and complicated in his eyes, and he traces cotton-gloved fingertips up the side of her face, tender.

She nods.

“And does this bring you happiness?”

She nods again, heart in her throat.

Hubert catches her hand and bows to kiss it. “Then allow me to make some further arrangements.”

* * *

Days pass in a wash of meetings before the three of them meet again in the sunlit cell, and this time Dimitri, damp haired and freshly-scrubbed in anticipation, keeps his seat as Hubert stands, looming over him like he’s about to dispense a lecture on dark magic.

“First,” Hubert says, placing a flat cardboard box on the table. “Concealing your identity is vital. I trust we are all in agreement on this point.”

“Yes,” Dimitri says gravely, and peers inside the box.

“Whenever you’re outside your cell or Her Majesty’s chambers, wear this.” Dimitri unfolds it as Hubert speaks: it’s a mage’s robe, with the shadow-eyed half-mask and hood used by some of the inner circles of the Vestra battalions. “Gloves and mask in place, of course. If anybody tries to pull you aside for some duty or another, tell them you’re at Marquis Vestra’s personal disposal. If they inquire further, or ask for your name, stonewall them and refer them to me. But anybody working in the palace should have sufficient discipline not to trouble you further.”

Dimitri raises his eyebrows just a touch, running his hands over the fabric. “That is a lot of power given to one uniform.”

“It’s a system we’ve used for some time. Nobody knows who my eyes are. And not all of them wear that.” Hubert leans over, catches Dimitri’s chin in his hand, and raises his head, radiating menace. “Understand that this cuts both ways. If you harm anyone in this palace, I _will_ know. And your punishment will be at my discretion, not Her Majesty’s. I need not damage her property in order to instill regret.”

Dimitri swallows hard, though Edelgard would guess it’s more at the _property_ than the threat. “I understand.” He wets his lips, and Hubert hasn’t quite let go of him yet. “I appreciate your commitment to the well-being of your people.”

 _That_ makes Hubert let go of him, almost too quickly, and Edelgard sips her tea in amusement.

“These,” Hubert says, recovering swiftly and pulling a parchment out of his breast pocket, “are the names and descriptions of all known undercover Agarthans in the palace. If any of these individuals try to speak with you, stonewall them as you would anybody else, but notify me as soon as you are able. Your personal guards are clean, as are those who staff Her Majesty’s quarters. I’d recommend going straight to them if you cannot find me.”

Dimitri’s eye widens as he takes it, unfolds it reverently.

“I’d recommend memorizing it and destroying it,” Hubert adds.

Dimitri scans it, swallows. “May I copy this into my notes, obscured as well as I am able? I’ll use shorthand and bury it. I just…my memory is not all it could be. Even simply copying will help.”

“Perhaps you should avail yourself of some memory exercises,” Hubert says thinly. “Since you will yet have considerable time on your hands. Copy it with care. I trust you understand the weight of that intelligence.”

“I do.” Dimitri bows his head, without fuss, and slides the parchment into his notebook. “Thank you. I’d like to request a lockbox for my notes, since I won’t be here all the time.

“I’ve already arranged for one to be sent up. There’s a hidden pocket in the inner lining of the robe. Keep one key on your person. The other will be with me.”

Dimitri reaches for the robe again, fidgets through the lining, nods.

“Those are your precautions against discovery. I’m going to take my own precaution against your escape. Or your recapture by other parties.” Hubert taps the box that holds Dimitri’s collar. “Tracking spells are a new form of magic that House Vestra has been developing. With some knowledge I’ve appropriated from the Agarthans. Their applications are extremely limited, but in this case, quite relevant.”

“A tracking spell,” Dimitri echoes. He’s gone a little still, as if perhaps a single nerve is jangling.

“If you leave certain areas of the palace, your other restraints will activate and I’ll be notified. You will have the run of this wing unless one of my staff notifies you otherwise.”

“We use it for discreet meetings at times,” Edelgard adds, for context, and Dimitri nods.

“We’ll show you the path you may take to Her Majesty’s quarters, as well as the palace library, the portrait gallery, and a few other places of interest.”

Dimitri’s eyes fall to the box and he swallows, brow furrowing. “May I ask…would it be possible to have access to the roof? Or some other place that’s outside?”

“You wound me,” Hubert drawls. “I intended to reveal the eastern roof to you on your tour.”

“Ah,” Dimitri blinks, taken aback. “My apologies.”

“Also my quarters have a lovely balcony,” Edelgard adds. “Though you’ll have to remain disguised out there. It has a nice view of the harbor, but that cuts both ways.”

“I see.” Dimitri takes a deep breath, lets it out, and nods. “That seems reasonable. Yes.”

Edelgard flattens a hand on the wooden box, then pauses, nursing an impulse. “Hubert, let’s give him the tour now. I think I want to do the rest in my room.”

“Very well,” says Hubert. “I see my presents for you shall have to be delivered early.”

Edelgard blinks. “Presents?”

“I took the liberty of having a few things sent up, Your Majesty. Including some reinforcement for your bedstead. The base, at least. The posts would need to be taken off for a few days of work to rebuild them, if you so wish.”

“I see,” Edelgard says, as Dimitri flushes. “Thank you. We’ll see about the posts soon enough, I think.”

“We can take our time on the tour,” Hubert says, and turns his gaze back to Dimitri. “And you should get changed.” He taps his chin with one finger, gaunt smile shading dangerous. “It would be appropriate to be naked under the robe, seeing as you are to present yourself to Her Majesty.”

“Ah,” Dimitri says stiffly, face heating, and drops Hubert’s gaze. “Yes—I suppose that’s—I was not exactly taught the proper way to submit, my apologies—”

Edelgard holds up a hand. “Do not worry. I appreciate your…” She frowns. “Oh, dear. How do I say I appreciate somebody’s natural charms without using those words and sounding like Lorenz Hellman Gloucester?” She cannot help but imitate the insufferable man when speaking his name, and it brings a startled smile to Dimitri’s lips.

“Earnest naiveté?” Hubert suggests.

“That’s worse,” Edelgard says.

“Uncultured eagerness to please?” Hubert continues.

“Even worse,” Dimitri mumbles, ears burning, and snatches up the robe to disappear behind the screen around his tub.

* * *

The tour is pleasant and uneventful, but Edelgard feels an uncomfortable and increasing number of butterflies deep inside as it goes on. Dimitri, masked, blends right into the occasional back-and-forth of uniformed staff, and it would hardly be uncommon for the Marquis to be walking and talking with one of his battalion to sort some matter with the Emperor. Dimitri moves almost cautiously, his first time out after weeks in his cell, but he gradually relaxes, asks questions about the palace, spends a long while soaking up air on the roof. Edelgard can’t help the occasional squeeze of his arm, lost in the billow of his robe, when nobody else is in the hallway with them.

Hubert’s gloved knuckles nudge the back of her hand where she’s got the box tucked under her elbow, grounding her like a lightning rod.

They finally trickle up to the imperial suite just as a small pack of staff are decamping, and linger at the end of the hall as they leave, and of course Hubert insists upon going in first.

For a moment it’s just the two of them, standing in the office adjoining Edelgard’s bedroom, and Dimitri fidgets with the edges of the mask.

“It’s safe to take that off here,” Edelgard says. “And to speak openly. The whole suite is private except for the balcony. There’s a sitting room there,” she waves a hand, “and the bathroom and balcony are both off the bedroom.”

Dimitri fumbles off the mask, and asks where he can leave it, and she waves at a chair.

She tightens her grip on the plain wood of the box, not entirely sure this is real. The lost mad prince of Faerghus fidgets on her fine carpet, waiting to take her collar. Even a month ago, she couldn’t have expected _this._

Hubert fills the door to her bedroom. “All seems to be in order. Shall he join you when he is ready?”

“Angling for another chance to haze him, Hubert?” Edelgard asks, not bothering to hide her smile.

“As your first submissive,” Hubert says, answering with a thin smile of his own, “it is my pleasure.”

“How very traditionalist of you,” she says, and he wrinkles his nose in annoyance. “Yes, very well.” Maybe she can use a few minutes to settle her nerves.

The lamps in her bedroom are turned to a pleasant warmth, and the place is freshly cleaned, the bed remade, with only the faintest hint of metal underneath the skirt of imperial red to show the work that was done. But there is also a far more visible change: at the foot of her bed, in place of an old changing bench which she almost never uses, sits a cage. Heavy wood like the rest of her furniture, iron-bound. Atop it is a neatly folded pile of blankets and pillows, soft red sleeping clothes, a plush robe, a heavy chain leash. All of appropriate size, she can only assume.

She traces her fingers along one side of the cage, a little stunned. It’s big—he probably could sleep in it comfortably, especially since she’s noticed he tends to curl on his side. The bars are wrought iron. He could break out easily. A symbol. And should he wake in a panic from some nightmare, he won’t be trapped. Well, Hubert had been listening, hadn’t he? Especially that day, in the wake of his first test.

Edelgard settles the box with Dimitri’s collar on top of the cage—his cage. On top of his tidily folded linens. In her bedroom. This. Isn’t exactly settling her nerves. She isn’t sure she’s had this many butterflies since preparing for her announcement upon taking the throne. Her declaration of war. The moment she’d stood up, barefaced and herself, to irrevocably change Fódlan’s history.

She checks twice that the collar is actually in the box before the door opens again, and she turns and raises her chin.

Dimitri stands naked in her doorway.

Hubert’s even gotten the eyepatch off him, his hair unbound and brushing his shoulders, and he’s more than a little pink. The cuffs at wrist and ankle are still in place, of course. It’s the first time she’s seen him when he’s not earnestly hard, she realizes—it’s almost as large when it’s flaccid. He blinks around the room, goes wide-eyed when he sees the cage. Surprise. Not particularly fear.

Hubert doesn’t follow him. Simply closes the old oak door behind Dimitri. Edelgard’s heart aches in relief at the calm look in his eyes.

“El,” Dimitri says, voice a little rough. “What should I…do?”

“Come in,” she says, and gestures gently to the floor.

He pads closer, and catches his reflection in her full-length mirror, and makes a small, unhappy croak, turning his head away.

“Pay it no mind,” Edelgard says. “Look just to me.” Perhaps interesting to explore that later. But for now, he can simply kneel, and he does, eye searching her. “You’re nervous,” she says quietly.

“I…yes. I do want this. I swear to you. It’s…simply. Change.”

She nods. “I’m nervous too.” Something in his eye softens. “It _does_ happen from time to time,” she adds wryly. “No matter how much I’d like to pretend otherwise.”

“You’re very good at hiding it.”

“I know. I’ve practiced.” She licks her lips. “But yes. Change. Dimitri…” She draws herself up. “You’ve told me your wish, given me your consent. I’ve asked for as much of an oath as I wish to. Do you want to give those things again?”

He bows his head for a moment, then nods. “Yes, please. I’m also…a bit of a traditionalist, perhaps.”

“I’ll allow it,” she says fondly, tracing fingers through his hair.

So they say it all again, more or less as they did before, and maybe it comes a little easier this time, and she caresses the bare column of his throat one last time, and goes to open the box.

Dimitri smiles, small and fond, as he sees the collar sitting heavy in her hands. “Of course he had it made to match,” he murmurs.

“Well, it wouldn’t do to have an uncoordinated set, now would it?” She steps closer. “Lift up your hair for me, Dimitri.”

He gathers it, fingers trembling, and lifts his chin, breathing just a little fast.

She settles the collar, fusses for a moment to make sure none of the soft fuzz at the nape of his neck is caught in the latch, and pushes it closed. The lock clicks. He sways just a little, exhaling in sheer surrender.

Edelgard runs both hands over the smooth metal, then circles him to see his face, the stunned haze of submission spreading over it. The way her collar sits on his neck. The heavy ring at the front that she can hook a finger into. “Mine.”

“Yours,” he answers, and bows into her like a sigh.

* * *

Hubert has cleared a long evening for them, for his lady’s first night with her new collared submissive, so Edelgard relaxes. She has Dimitri undress her most of the way, down to chemise and underwear, then serve her tea and cookies, which he does with earnest and overwhelming care. It’s a sheer indulgence that feels entirely different from how Hubert does it, and she can tell the service is calming . He blisses at her feet as she refreshes herself, one hand settled in his hair to knead it as he melts.

“Open your mouth,” she says, tugging a little to tilt his head back, and he does, unhesitating. She feeds him a cookie. Then, after another sip of tea, she simply explores with her fingers, fucks his face just because she can. Feeding one’s submissives isn’t nearly as common in Adrestia—in fact, at the heights of formal banquets, he’d be expected to feed her, waiting on her hand and foot—but she can see the appeal of the Faerghan tradition at the moment. Maybe because she likes the control. She gives him two more cookies. Sips of tea from her cup, and they both fumble a little with that, since she hasn’t done it before. Her fingers pressing down the back of his tongue until he gags.

He keeps his hands behind his back for all of it, even as he struggles around her fingers. “Good boy,” she murmurs, petting his hair tenderly as he makes wet little noises. “You’re mine, after all. This means you’ll serve me as I wish, let me use that lovely cock of yours.” He whines soft around her fingers, ears reddening. “But this also means I can do what I like with you. Put whatever I want in you. Your mouth, your ass, those are mine too.”

She slides her fingers out enough so he can talk and tilts his face up to watch him flush further, mouth going slack, a little shiver running through him. “Yes, El,” he says, a ragged rasp. “They’re yours.”

* * *

Edelgard finishes her tea, takes down her hair as she squeezes Dimitri between her knees—she doesn’t quite trust him with _that_ yet, not with a saucer full of broken needles—and orders him to the bed. He starts to rise, and she holds up a hand. “I didn’t give you permission to stand. When you need to. Not before.”

“I-I’m so sorry—“

He sinks back down, close to prostrating himself, and she puts a reassuring hand in his hair.

“Sshh. It’s all right. Just do it.”

So, still flushed with shame, he crawls the little distance across the carpet. His movements feel a little stiff, self-conscious; she can hear his breathing in the deep insulated silence of the imperial chambers.

“Up now,” she says, plopping on the bed herself and patting it, once, before she catches herself—he’s not a _cat_. Much more obedient, for one thing. “Lie on your back. Hands over your head.” He stretches out, dutiful, and she takes a moment to run her hands all down the length of him, then reaches for a pillow. Not the one she sleeps on, just one of her many extras. “Feet flat and spread out.” He seems to like taking orders about his position. Simple, physical, straightforward. “Lift your hips for a moment,” she adds once he’s there, and stuffs the pillow under him, leaving him just that more exposed. “There we go.”

Edelgard settles beside him, where she can easily slip a hand around and play with his ass, and takes a moment to run hands over him, her Dimitri, wearing her collar and bound in her bed at her word. She orders him to spread his legs further, and he shivers as he obeys.

“Are you nervous?” she asks, running a hand up the back of his thigh.

“A…a little, maybe.” He fidgets a little, but doesn’t close his knees or move his hands. “It’s—it’s not as if a submissive man wouldn’t expect to be taken. In Faerghus, I mean. We’re not _that_ uptight. But…”

She hums acknowledgement and lets her hands wander. Ass, thighs, balls, the sensitive skin behind them. “But you need not hide anything from me. Certainly not that you’re a submissive.” She reaches up to tap the metal at his throat. “It would be a little silly to try.”

That startles a laugh out of him—an actual laugh of amusement and not his usual bitter-black huffs—and the line of tension in his leg eases a little. “It’s not like you just collared me or anything.”

She hooks a finger into the ring and tugs, and he makes a soft noise and melts. Oh, she could do that all day. But she could also do so much more, and so she reaches for the bottle of oil and slicks up her fingers, then drops her hand down to circle his hole, light and teasing.

He gasps as she touches him, once very soft, and then breathes a little fast through parted lips, something like wonder in his eye. “That’s…”

She smiles. “It’s sensitive, isn’t it?” He nods, tries to turn his face away just a little. Almost hesitant, like he isn’t sure he’s allowed. “Don’t hide,” she says, voice dropping as she puts command into it, and his head falls back into position. “Breathe. Just relax and open for me.”

He pants. She rearranges so she can reach his neck comfortably, and holds him by the collar as she rubs his hole, spreading oil, unrelenting sensation, until something eases and his rim twitches and she dips a finger inside. Her hands are small, she knows, so she can’t get very deep, but at least it’s a nice warmup.

He moans, soft and stunned, as she sinks to her knuckle. His eye drifts shut, lips parting, and then he makes an almost frightened noise, looks up at her guiltily. “That’s all right,” she reassures him. “Just don’t turn your face away from me.”

Dimitri nods, small and grateful, and breaks open on another moan as she moves, twisting her finger, spreading oil, working in and out.

“Tell me how you feel,” she says, tugging his collar, because asking him is one thing, but watching him push himself to meet her every order is even better.

“I feel—it’s—strange. Good, I think. It doesn’t hurt much, I was worried it would, but it’s just. Sensitive. Very strange. Even your finger feels—big.”

She laughs softly. “It’s not, particularly, but thank you for the flattery.”

He huffs, pink. “It does though.”

“Well.” She eases out a little, enough to tease another finger around his rim. “Then anything else must feel even bigger.” She smiles. “That’s dangerous information to give me, Dimitri. It might make a girl want to find the biggest thing you can take.” He makes a ragged noise, reddening, a shiver of fear that makes his hardening cock pulse. “To fill you up until you can barely breathe.” And his hole twitches, all but sucking her second finger in. “I might just have to fuck you tonight.” She thrusts to the knuckle, a little less than gentle, driving another shaky gasp out of him, then slows again, tender. “Would you like that?”

“Y…yes. Goddess, yes, El.”

“Good,” she purrs, and finger-fucks him long and slow and sweet. “Good boy.” Two fingers make it a little easier to reach deeper—no, she can’t quite get any real pressure on his prostate, but even grazing it makes him moan, eye going wide. “And how’s that?” she coaxes, teasing it, deep as she can go.

“T-that feels—like it will undo me, it’s so—it’s good.” He heaves a deep breath. “It’s good.”

“Perfect.” She tugs his collar again, a gentle reminder. “You _can_ come undone, you know. I want you to.”

“I’m…” His brow furrows, then goes slack with a gasp as she fucks him. “I’m. Scared to. Probably.”

“Why?” she asks, going still with her fingers buried deep inside him. He’s so _warm_ —she could just keep her hands in him on a chilly night, that would be very nice.

“I…” He swallows, closing his eye in thought, and she moves once, slow and gentle. “I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. I’ve tried to be…” The breath leaves him in a blown-out sigh as she sinks her fingers into him. “In control. Of myself. Submitting to you is…is a choice.”

“Mm. And you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t, and if I didn’t respect that. But you are here now.” Another collar tug. “I’ll bind you if you need it. I won’t let you hurt either of us. But I’m going to do as I will with you. I think…” She hums, contemplative, buzzing with potential, and then taps the very top of his thigh with her other hand, right where it meets his ass. “Since you wish to be in control of yourself, hands here for now. Hold yourself open.”

Dimitri makes a choked-back noise and slowly, face burning, moves his hands down. His fingers dig into his skin; she can see the dimples they make, feel the way his hole opens a little more.

“Did you want to fight me about that?” she murmurs, giving him slow gentle strokes of her two fingers, and then teasing a third around his rim.

“Fuck,” he breathes, barely voiced, almost subliminal. Then swallows. “Probably,” he manages, voice so thick with arousal he sounds drunk. “This…I’ve never…I didn’t think this was…me.”

“It is,” Edelgard says, voice low and steady, and manages barely the tip of her third finger as he groans, shuddering. “This is you. You’re here. You’re alive. You exist in this moment, as yourself, as my submissive, and you are doing so well that I too can barely believe it.” She reaches up to run a hand over his chest. “And I will undo you, and when I’m done with that, you will be safe and cared for.”

Dimitri gives something that sounds almost like a sob, and shivers full-body, and it’s like she’s unlatched something. The tight ring she’s massaging twitches, eases a little more open, and her three fingers sink deeper.

“Thank you, El,” he breathes, and doesn’t move his hands.

“Good boy.” She tugs on his collar. Runs her hand down over his heart. Even gives a friendly stroke to his ever-firmer cock. “Now. Keep your hands right where they are. I’m going to give you a toy that’ll help you get used to having something inside you. And that’ll reach this better.” She gets as deep as she can, teases his prostate and wringing out a truly lovely groan of anxious anticipation. “Then, once you’ve served me, I’ll take that out and fuck you.”

He heaves a huge breath at that, fingers digging deeper into his ass, and she thrusts harder on impulse, knocking the wind out of him along with a dangerously entrancing moan.

* * *

The toy Edelgard picks is glass, long and coiling, shaped to stay firmly inside and ride against a man’s prostate for relentless teasing, and Dimitri can barely stop making thin little noises behind his teeth as he’s wearing it. Then she has him bring her his leash in his mouth—heavy chain, agarthium to match the rest, with a red leather wrist loop at one end—and the look in his eye is drowning, desperate. He sways when she clasps it onto him. Barely moves otherwise, and she pulls his hair and kisses him until she’s dizzy and orders him onto the floor.

He slides down like a man who’s forgotten how to walk, boneless, a groan as the toy jostles inside him.

“I think,” she says, taken with mischief, “that I should go wash my hands.” And slips the loop of his leash over her wrist. “Come, Dimitri.”

He’s so far under that he doesn’t even try to stand. She keeps a leisurely pace—no doubt crawling with a swirl of glass pressed against his prostate is a particularly interesting experience, and he’s making the most exquisite little groans. In the washroom, she has him hold his own leash in his mouth as she tidies herself, and he settles on his knees, hands folded behind his back, in a deep and peaceful stillness, broken only by the pulse in his now painfully hard cock, the tiny whines he sometimes makes on a breath.

She takes a moment just to admire him, naked in open surrender, collared— _hers_ —but really, the tile in here can’t be pleasant for his knees.

Back to her bedroom, to the carpet. She tips him over with a push of a bare foot, just because she can, and the leash gives him just enough room to go all the way down if she stays close to him. Flat on his back, he lets out a soft shaky breath, lips curving in a distant smile as she traces her bare foot over his chest.

“Was that yesterday or years ago?” he murmurs, slurred, the first time he’s formed words since she settled the toy inside him.

“Only weeks.” She finds her balance just so, and lifts her foot so she can trace it over his jaw. “May as well be years, with how much you’ve changed.”

He falls silent again and turns his face to kiss the arch of her foot, damp from where he’d drooled around his leash.

“Oh,” she says, shivering with pleasure. “Well, then.” She slides her foot over his face, just a little more pressure. “I suppose you’ll be wearing that plug a little longer, won’t you?”

* * *

He wears it as she tramples him, moaning in abject surrender with her foot on his chest, his thighs, his cock. He wears it as he sucks her toes, wet and eager, sparks up her spine that make her legs wobble. He wears it as she sinks down to ride his face, grinding to one fast and needy orgasm before slowing down and taking her time, telling him exactly how she likes it.

He wears it as she strokes his wet face and squeezes his hand and tells him to tap out if he’s in distress, since he’s falling so deep she’s not entirely sure he’s verbal except for the little murmurs of her name as he touches her like she’s wrought of spun glass, like he’s in awe, and the light drag of his rough fingers sends tingles down her spine like she’s never felt.

“Where are you?” she asks, carding his hair back so she can see his eye clearly, and it’s a little damp as he blinks at her, entranced.

“Here,” he says, slow, like the words are taking a terribly long time to bubble up from the depths. “With you.” He walks fingers down her shoulder, her arm, and the heat of his touch in the crook of her elbow feels so terribly real. Her _elbow_. “I’m more here than I’ve ever been.”

She grabs his collar in answer, something thick and wild rising in her chest that she can only express by digging her fingers under it and holding him. “Good. Stay here. I’m keeping you.”

Dimitri smiles like he’s come out into the sunlight after years below ground.

She pulls him in for a kiss, dragging at his lips with her teeth, and then wraps around him and rolls them. “Hands and knees.” He takes the order like he’s putty, and she beams up at him, batting the dangling leash to one side. “It’s _you_ , I could just…” He catches on as she hooks her heels together behind his hips, and braces his shoulders as she gets one hand behind his neck, the other under his arm, and pulls.

Edelgard’s back floats an inch off the ground, and she sways a little, dangling off Dimitri, and laughs. It bubbles in her throat. She barely recognizes the sound. He breathes deep, taking her small weight with ease, and she pulls herself up further to kiss him.

“I’ve missed you, El,” he murmurs, soft against her lips.

“Oh, Dimitri,” she breathes in a rush, and kisses him again, and drops herself back down to the carpet. “It’s not like I’ve gone anywhere. I’ve just been…”

Her voice dies in her throat. She’s still bubbling, and holds onto his collar to weather the rush of emotion, then squirms down a little so she can reach a hand up between his legs and nudge the base of his plug, rubbing it against his prostate and knocking a groan out of him.

“You’re here now.” His voice is soft, ragged as she plays with the toy lodged deep inside him, making him shudder and moan. “You’re here now.”

“And you’re mine,” she answers, low and absolute, collar in one hand and plug in the other. “ _Mine_. And I’m going to fuck you until you scream.”

It’s a scrabble from there, delirious. Her whole body feels quiveringly alive—she gets arms around his waist and throws him bodily onto her bed, because she may be small but she is never weak—he lands with a whump and a groan in a splay of limbs, and she grabs one of those long-muscled legs just to drag her nails down his thigh. “Hands on your ass, my Dimitri. Play with that toy while I get ready.”

He flusters, breath rattling, reddening to his ears and all down his chest in a rush, and flings an arm over his face in wordless protest, squirming.

“Take your hand off your face.” She feels her voice ring in her own ears even as she pulls open the nightstand drawer, rummages for her harness. “Reach down.” He obeys with a whine, feet twitching in the covers like he’s desperate to close his legs and hide himself. “Feel the base of it. Push on it.” She yanks off her underwear—she likes the friction of the harness against her clit, the feedback it gives her. Even if she can’t come from that alone, it’s quite pleasant.

He pushes, makes a choked noise, bites hard on his lip.

“Don’t hold back. This is for my pleasure, Dimitri. You’re serving me in this.”

His eye goes wide as that sinks in, and his flush deepens, but his feet stop twitching. Maybe even ease an inch further apart.

“Yes. There you go. Good boy. Nudge it back and forth—just gently.” She drags straps into place, cinching them down tight, and watches how his rim clenches around the glass as he moves it. “I’m enjoying your embarrassment too, of course. You really are a delight.” It’s remarkable that there’s even enough blood in his body to make his face that red and his cock that hard.

“Thank you, El,” he manages, cracked and barely audible.

“Now,” she says, contemplating the rest of the drawer. “Which do you like more—the glass or my fingers?”

He struggles with that, half-formed syllables scattering on his lips even as he dutifully keeps playing with his plug. “They’re both—y-yes—your fingers? I think? The glass is…hard…”

“Mm, it’s been in there a while by now, hasn’t it?” She runs a hand down his thigh, then reaches for a simple leather dildo, reasonably sized, and straps it into the harness. Adds a lambskin to deal with the mess. Then climbs onto the bed, and his eye goes wide and a little needy as he takes her in: hair a mess, half-naked, leather cock standing up between her legs. It’s nudging the hem of the chemise, so she pulls it off over her head without a thought, and he makes a tiny aching noise and reaches for her with his free hand. “You’ve been very, very good,” she croons, indulgent, and runs hands over his chest, scooting close enough for him to touch her.

“Thank you, El,” he says again, broken halfway through as he does something to himself with the plug.

“I think I’ll give you a kindness.” She drags a hand down his cheek, not particularly gently, enjoying the sheer heat of his skin. “Since I’ve seen so much of those lovely faces you make when there’s something up your ass.” She reaches for a pillow. “Roll over. Face down on this. Ass up. Spread your legs. Hands behind your back.”

He obeys, shaky, and she lets him fidget to get comfortable before she calls up a spell circle and locks his wrists together. He heaves a breath, hips squirming without purchase, and she reaches up to grab a fistful of his hair, hold his face down as she runs a hand over his ass. “There,” she purrs, and smacks him, jolting out a moan. “This is a good place for you.”

“Oh, goddess,” he breathes. Then, wrecked, “yes. Yes.”

She smacks the other cheek, for symmetry, and then reaches down to tug the base of the toy, slowly working it out of him. It’s a careful stretch until the swell at the base pops free and he finally releases it with a loud groan. More oil—she’d forgotten, she can barely reach, but she manages, slicks her fingers again, plunges two deep without mercy. He takes them with ease, then the third on the next stroke with barely any workup, and she fingers him while pulling his leash, keeping him in his place as he moans open-throated into her mattress.

“Ready or not,” she says, pulling her hand free, and scoots into position between his spread knees—oh, he’s _so_ ready, but his little shudder of anticipation is delicious. His leash runs over his bare back, heavy on his skin, and he groans and cants his ass as she lines herself up.

“Goddess, E—” he starts, and she pulls his leash and thrusts, burying herself in him, turning her name into a pleading cry.

“Just you and me, Dimitri.” She digs her toes in, finds her best angle. He’s _huge_ —she scrabbles nails on his back, decides that next time she’ll put a harness round his chest so she can drag his whole body down on her dick. “Though I welcome your worship.”

“You’re,” Dimitri gasps, and it scatters on her next thrust. “You,” and it breaks again as she gets a good grip on his hip.

“Oh, not right now,” she says, smacking his thigh. “Let your cries be my worship. If you can still talk, I’m not making.” In time with her strokes. “Good. Use of you.” An entirely new sort of moan rattles out of him like she hasn’t heard before, a delicious shudder, and she leans over him low as she can, grinding deep inside him. “Is that what you want, Dimitri? To be used?” She catches his hair. “To be useful?”

“Yes,” he croaks, almost a sob of relief. “Yes. Please. Yes.”

“I can feel this on my clit, you know.” It _should_ be a hiss in his ear, but she can’t quite reach. “Every stroke.” A few hard ones for punctuation. “I’m rubbing off on you. Your mouth, your cock, now your ass. I’ll find all kinds of uses for your hands, I’m sure.” Whatever shreds of reserve he had left are starting to fray, his moans growing heedless. “Shall you be my tea-table? My footstool, my chair, my trusty steed? Warmth for my hands in the winter? The one who dresses me and brings me food and massages away my aches?”

“Yes,” Dimitri chants, bent boneless over his pillow, shaking with need. “Yes, please, El, yes…” He can barely form the words; it’s blurry nonsense, repeating until he runs out of air. She splays a hand on his back, crushing him into the bed, and fucks him hard enough to rock the mattress, and there’s a low roar building in the back of his throat, a thump-thump as he kicks one foot.

“Keep your feet still,” she hisses, because she wants to see what he does when he can’t squirm—it’s a full-throated wail, and that’s _so_ very nice, and there’s a wet spot under his chin and his eye might be watering and his legs are trembling as she keeps pounding. Dull warmth of exertion spreading through her hips, but really, she could go all night.

Dimitri, though, probably can’t, and a merry spark of revenge seizes her, and she stretches as far as she can to shove her fingers in his mouth, wetting them well as he makes lovely little gagging sounds on each stroke. Then she pushes herself up so she can snake that hand around to find his dangling cock. Sure enough, it’s hard as anything, well-tormented by the pillow he’s pressed over, and he almost wails as she takes hold. It’s an awkward angle, but a light breeze could probably finish him right now.

“E—El,” he blurts, hips jerking.

“You’re going to try not to come,” she says, digging bruising-tight onto his hip. “And I’m going to win—oh, you won’t fail me when you do, don’t feel shame, Dimitri, never feel shame if you can help it—but I want you to fight me for it.” He makes a baffled whine as she starts stroking him, whole torso jerking in her grip. “Hold on as long as you can.”

And once she finds the rhythm, she starts fucking him again, hard as she can manage without losing hold of his cock. Which isn’t very hard, but slow and sweet can be a little devastating for a man as well, and Dimitri makes unearthly noises as he tries to hold himself together. His hands are white-knuckled fists in his cuffs, his toes curled tight, muscles in his thighs twitching. He’s bearing down so hard she can feel it drag on her strap-on—oh, that must be making it _far_ more difficult on himself, poor dear. The tighter he holds on, the more he comes apart, and she works him inexorably as he shudders, shouts, swears—whole obscenities wrung from those reserved lips—

He wails her name as she breaks the last shreds of his control and he spills messy over hand and pillow both.

He groans and pleads as she milks him through it, squeezing every last drop out of his rapidly sensitizing cock.

He outright screams as she digs sticky fingers into his hip and pounds into him with full strength again. No mercy.

She fucks him until the fight runs out of him, until he’s a boneless mess of unending moans, until the tease of leather against her clit is becoming nearly unbearable. But she is unendingly patient, even when she doesn’t want to be, and so she slows just a little, eases out of him, pats his ass, and calls him a good boy as he twitches, nerveless, wordless, and wrecked. She scrapes together enough focus to summon the spell that will release his hands. Yanks off the straps of her harness and drags him limp to roll onto his back.

Dimitri sprawls there, face red and slack with bliss, and slowly focuses on her as she crawls up over him and straddles his shoulders.

“Goddess,” he murmurs, voice cracked, one hand hovering over her thigh, and she isn’t even sure whether he means the falsehood in the sky or her. She pulls his hair with a smile.

“I want at least one more from you,” she says as she lowers herself down. “Two fingers inside me, once you can move.”

“Yes, El,” he moans, fervent and almost indecipherable, into her cunt.

* * *

Dimitri gives Edelgard two more, even fucked silly, and by the second one she’s flopped on her side, one leg splayed over his shoulder, as he works three of those big fingers in her and carries her over a peak that leaves her shaking and screaming herself, a huge helpless thrashing affair, and in its wake, her body is limp and her mind singingly clear.

They hold each other for a long while in the silence of the night, with her wrapped around him very tight and his face buried between her breasts and her fingers latched into his collar. Her collar. Her Dimitri.

Eventually they remember what words are, then moving, and then they are in desperate need of a bath, so they very slowly unpeel themselves and ooze to the next room for Edelgard to fidget with the spell that warms the tub. Hubert, of course, had arranged for it to be filled and left covered. It’s even scented with a scatter of lavender.

There’s a second shaving set on the vanity, set beside Hubert’s own precious monogrammed razor that nobody else in the world, not even Edelgard, is allowed to touch.

They scrub each other once it heats, and sit skin-to-skin, warm and wet, until Dimitri finally murmurs, “I didn’t realize you actually had a cage.”

“It’s new,” Edelgard says, busy toying with his hair—it turns a dark gold when wet, and it’s fascinating. “It seems Hubert had it sent up for you.”

Dimitri blinks slowly at that. “It’s iron, though. Of course he’d want me to sleep restrained if I was in your chamber, but only iron…I can’t believe he’d make an oversight like that.”

Edelgard smooths a hand over his forehead. “I know a little of nightmares.” An understatement. He kisses her forehead in response, tender. “I wouldn’t force you to sleep bound,” she continues, even as something flutters in her chest. “Not at this point. Not when you’re mine.”

He’s quiet for a moment, still clearly bewildered. “You’re saying he…trusts me with you? Even in the night?”

“I’m not sure I’d go _quite_ that far,” she hedges. “Hubert’s a terribly light sleeper, and has a knife in his nightshirt. But yes. I’d imagine he intended it as a comfort.”

Dimitri smiles, faint and wry. “Well, I’m not surprised he was listening then after all.”

“He’s Hubert.” Edelgard sighs fondly and leans against the scarred warmth of him. “He’s always listening.”

* * *

In the imperial chambers, at least, there is another listener besides Hubert: the Lady Celestine herself is waiting on the carpet when they finally emerge from the bath to express her displeasure at the repeated slights.

Dimitri, toweled dry and wrapped in a scarlet robe that makes him look paler and oddly ethereal, halts with a little startled noise. Edelgard croons softly and sinks to her knees in greeting. “Oh, I know, small lady,” she croons, scritching under her chin. I’ve not been paying attention to you. I know.”

“Ah,” Dimitri says, a little awkward, padding up beside her. “Hello, there.”

“Dimitri, this is Lady Celestine von Pawsvelg, who has been my dear companion for nearly as long as Hubert.” She’s not entirely surprised the full name makes him giggle—in her defense, she’d been quite small. “Lady Celestine, this is Dimitri, who might sleep here at times.” She looks up at him. “She’ll yell at you. It’s her way.”

“Mrr _wah_ ,” Celestine says decisively.

“Yes,” Dimitri says, and sits beside her. Cross-legged, which is perhaps a mistake if he wants to get up. Celestine investigates him as he holds nervously still, like he’s frightened to even touch her fragile old body, and then stomps one little black paw on his leg and proceeds to colonize his lap.

“Well,” Edelgard says, tapping a finger on the back of his collar. “You’re well and truly trapped now.”

“A…apparently,” Dimitri says, wide-eyed. “Goddess, she’s tiny. Has she always been this small?”

“Yes. She’s lost a little weight by now, but she’s always been my small lady.” Edelgard reaches over to pet her just how she likes, stirring up a purr in Dimitri’s lap. “Right, you have those huge fluffy cats up in Faerghus.”

“Well, they must stay warm in the long winter and hunt all the mice in the snow.” He cautiously touches the back of one finger between Lady Celestine’s ears. “Oh. She’s silky.”

“She’s my sweet girl,” Edelgard says, indulgent, and leans over to bury her face in her fur. Which means Dimitri pets her instead, still the back of his hand, soft over her tangled hair.

She straightens, and takes a long moment just to look at him, quiet and awkward, sitting on her carpet with her cat in his lap, cuffs gleaming in the light, the curve of metal showing under the nape of his robe.

She still doesn’t want this to stop. This impossible respite.

Lady Celestine unfolds and stretches eventually, perhaps due to Dimitri’s nervousness, and he stands, stiff, and looks at his pajamas atop the cage.

“Do put them on,” Edelgard says comfortably. “If we are awake and at ease, I think I’ll keep you naked in here. But stay warm to sleep. It can get a little chilly at night, since we don’t keep a fire going.”

Dimitri nods, and carefully pulls them on, and blinks down at her. “Are there…I suppose I should have asked. Are there other rules you want me to follow?”

“Mm.” She yawns. “I don’t worry much about that sort of thing. Strip and unbind your hair when you’re here, and take off your eyepatch unless that’s utterly intolerable. Stand only when you need to.” He folds to his knees with a soft noise, almost unhesitating. “I’m not going to be too finicky about that. Consider it a loose guideline. Oh, the black pillow is Hubert’s, not that he bothers with it much, so don’t use that one. We’ll pick out one for you next time.”

“The carpet’s quite comfortable,” Dimitri murmurs.

Edelgard sighs and ruffles his hair fondly. “ _Masochists_. Both of you. You’ll still have your own pillow, you big idiot.” She’s quiet for a moment, studying him. “At least for now, if you feel like you want to hurt yourself, come here instead. Tell the door guard that you’re here and wait for me. Though I admit that if it’s during the day, it may be a while.”

“You…have duties. Of course.” He processes that, brow gently furrowed, and she squeezes a damp handful of hair. “I…I will.”

“And I can only imagine you’re up well past your bedtime by now,” she says fondly, and goes back to petting. “Do you want to try sleeping in the cage?”

He blinks, muzzy. “I…”

She tilts her head. “Do you want me to order you to so you don’t need to answer that question?”

He almost pouts. “When you put it like that. I would like to think I am not that much of a coward. So. Yes. I…do not know if it will prove unpleasant, but I would like to try.”

“Well, then.” She walks. He crawls after her.

Hubert must have sent a servant through. The messy coverlet has been changed, the pillow whisked off, the oil and harness returned to their places. The heavy chain leash, unclipped somewhere in the aftermath, is again coiled neatly atop the cage, and the inside of it has been lined with blankets and pillows and a featherbed.

They both inspect the door: there is in fact no lock. Only a latch that could be lifted from either side, and a bolt only accessible from the outside, which does make a very satisfying clack, and which she’s sure could be used for great effect if they’re playing with it.

Dimitri peers inside. Then crawls in, fidgets around for a bit to feel out the size of it, and curls down on his side. “It’s…very comfortable,” he ventures. “I might, ah. I might want to leave early, to catch the morning light.”

“Of course.” Edelgard closes the door, latch clicking, and takes a moment to be gently stunned. She’d be screaming in there; he bumps against the bars and relaxes like he’s being held. She can’t resist the urge to sit on the top and reach a hand down to find his hair through the bars, and he touches her leg in answer. “I’ll leave it unbolted. Your robe and mask should still be out in the office. Feel free to just leave if you’re up before we are. I’ll see you again soon enough.”

“Yes.” The gentlest squeeze of her calf before he retracts his hand. “Good night, El.”

“Good night,” she murmurs, like this is normal, and perhaps, with time, it will be.

His breathing steadies. He dozes off, and she goes to her vanity to comb out her hair, brush it sleek, put it in braids to sleep.

Hubert comes in, takes in the occupied cage with a glance, and finishes one braid as she does the other. He doesn’t comment except to kiss her hand. There’s nothing really left to say, except a quiet whisper in his ear. “Thank you. Always.”

“Your Majesty,” he answers, because just that much means everything, and so they too go to bed.

Three companions now. The tiny snorts Lady Celestine makes in her sleep, a perfect black circle on her favorite pillow next to the wooden steps that let her old bones climb up to the imperial bed. The deep silence of Hubert, breathing slow, a beloved bony warmth on Edelgard’s feet. The faint buzz of Dimitri snoring gently below, and it’s ridiculous to think she can feel the heat of his body from so far away, and yet the room feels warmer in the night.

Edelgard lies there staring at the ceiling and presses a hand over her ribs because they’re swelling fit to burst.


	5. Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added a few tags. This is when that threesome tag becomes relevant, and it got kinkier than even I had planned, because, y'know, Hubert.

**V — PAIN**

Dimitri lasts almost two weeks before he slumps.

It’s a giddy time. And occasionally a frustrating one. Edelgard really hadn’t thought through what it would do to her schedule to have two submissives. Hubert gives her another night or two of undivided time with Dimitri as they settle in, but she refuses to turn him aside longer. And Dimitri is gracious and understanding when she has to close the door on him, but she can’t imagine it’s the most pleasant feeling to just roam back to his cell. Still, with all her duties, there is only so much she can give them, especially when she can’t play them off each other.

Edelgard is beginning to wonder whether the less-glamorous reality of the noble Adrestian orgy with one’s several submissives is efficient time management.

At least neither of them particularly drain her, now that Dimitri’s more stable. Even when she’s worn thin, Hubert is a lifelong comfort, and Dimitri’s earnestly awkward service is a balm. And it is so much easier to rule one man than a nation.

But, perhaps inevitably, there are a few nights when Dimitri doesn’t come at all, and the doctor reports his mood is sagging despite everything. Withdrawn, agitated, pacing his room or the palace. At least it sells the fiction that the tall masked mage is in the Marquis’ service as he strides by like a man on a mission.

Edelgard marks off a large block of clear time as his, and is heading to her chambers to change out of her court regalia when the guard at the door raises her hand to deliver a quiet message. “You have a visitor, Your Majesty. Your mage friend.”

She blinks once. “Ah, good. I have business with him.”

As she enters, she sees the red and black tumble of Dimitri’s disguise dropped on the guest chair in her office. Hat, mask, gloves, all of it, and not folded neatly like usual. A small knot of urgency carries her to her bedroom without so much as shedding her imperial cloak

Dimitri kneels huddled on her carpet. Naked, collared, cuffed. Tight satisfaction curls in her body. This feels right; this is where he belongs; and she will not let him stay in distress. He twitches visibly as she comes in, and his hands fall fumbling at his sides.

“It’s me,” she says, quiet and firm.

“Yes.” He’s got his back to the door, like he’d just stumbled in and collapsed to wait for her. His forearms, she can see as she circles him, are dotted with little red crescents, imprints of his nails, fading. He’s bare-faced, and she wonders where the patch got to. His eye widens as he takes in the scarlet-and-gold expanse of her, and she wonders for a moment if she should take it off lest it bring up a bad memory—but no, he’s never seen her in it before, has he?

Edelgard takes a deep breath, steadying herself down to her toes. Lets it out and raises her chin. “You’ve come for pain.”

He looks slightly out of focus, puzzled. “You told me to…if I…”

“Back straight,” she murmurs. “Cross your wrists behind you. Sit on your heels. Spread your knees. Relax your shoulders. Take five deep breaths, as slow as you can without straining.”

Dimitri obeys, a little sluggish. She steps into his space and rests a hand in his hair, and when he’s finished with his five deep breaths, slides it down to fold over the back of his collar. The metal’s warm from his body, and she wants to bare her teeth in satisfaction, wrap around him like a hissing monster and never let him go.

His breathing steadies as he settles. The vast circle of the imperial cape, stiff with hidden armor, frames him, and for a moment, on impulse, she pulls it closed over him like a tent. Protection.

“You did well to come to me,” she says.

Two more deep breaths until he manages, small and rough, “Yes, El.”

She pries her hand off his neck, lets her cloak fall away, and takes his chin instead, tilting his head back to study his face. “Do you want pain?” she asks gently.

“I…suppose. I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like this. I just.” His hands twist behind him; she can see the ripple of it in his arms. “Didn’t know how else to make sense of anything.”

“Do you think you deserve it?”

He worries his lip, and she plants a thumb on it, holding it steady. He doesn’t find words, just nods.

“Do you want to be bound?”

Something crumples in his face, and he shakes a little, there on his knees, and finally manages, barely a whisper, “Please.”

And moves, folding in half—still with his wrists obediently crossed—to kiss the toe of one boot.

Edelgard freezes, something wild and red-hot sparking up her spine—in her regalia, in her _crown_. Swift and lurid and entirely impractical fantasies of keeping him chained to the foot of her throne dance before her eyes. “Oh, Dimitri,” she breathes. He tenses—she can see the muscles jump in his bare shoulders. “Good boy,” she murmurs.

The tension eases back out.

She could lift her other foot and trample him under her armored heel, and oh she’s tempted, but she’d rather keep this controlled, and it’ll be good to be able to check his face.

“Stand when you’re ready,” she says. And wonders for a moment if he’s stuck and needs permission to use his arms—before he unfolds himself with his core strength, gets one foot under, stands. It’s almost graceful. He’s gently flushed, eye downcast, face slack and lips parted. Cloudy with tension. Not particularly hard.

“Come,” she says, and reaches up to catch the ring at the front of his collar. He lets himself be maneuvered a few feet sideways, lined up under the magical anchors Hubert had inscribed on her ceiling and under her carpet. “Arms up and spread your legs.”

He obeys, breathing a little faster, and she closes her eyes for a moment, focusing, visualizing the circle above her palm. She can do the usual versions with ease, but this is a new one, made to form a bond at a distance. The spell flares, catching his cuffs, locking them into place and stretching him taut.

Dimitri struggles against it once, shivers, and breathes a little faster, strung up in a long-limbed helpless sideways cross in the middle of her bedroom by magic he can’t hope to break.

“It will hold your weight,” Edelgard says. “You can relax into it as much as you need. If your shoulders hurt, signal me, and I’ll find another way to bind you.”

He nods, wordless, and she steps close to hold his collar and go on her tiptoes to kiss him, deep and thorough. He opens to it slowly, surrendering by inches, and when she lets go, he sags in his bonds with a faint noise of relief.

“Now, Dimitri,” she says, low but firm, putting command into it to hold his attention. “I’m not doing this because I’m angry at you, nor because I feel you deserve to be punished. You have been good for me. I am doing this for the enjoyment of us both. Understand?”

He nods slowly. His breathing is steadying, deep and fast, bracing himself.

“I’m going to try out a few things on you and see what you like the most. I might ask your opinion as I go, but if you have trouble finding words, just nod or shake your head. If something is intolerable, or if it is making your mind more troubled rather than less, signal me immediately. I want your promise on that.”

He swallows hard. “I promise.”

She brushes his hair off his face. “You’re frightened.”

“I…” He takes a few uncertain breaths, lips parted, and she smooths her thumb over his mouth again. This time he kisses it, reverent, like he’s steadying himself.

“I’m still not going to torture you, Dimitri. I’m looking for the kind of pain you enjoy. You’re going to help me find it, and then I’m going to give you your fill.”

Another nod, and he manages, raw, “Thank you. El.”

She circles his lips as he mouths at her thumb, then slowly presses it inside, watching his face heat, his eye go hazy. Leather and red-powdered steel of her light gauntlets, and he takes it without hesitation—with more than a little interest, perhaps. “I’m going to give you something to chew on. It shouldn’t make it too hard to speak.”

His brow furrows as he processes that, and he nods, not letting go of her thumb. She reclaims it, pats his cheek, and goes to scrounge. Tonight she gets a simple leather strap: she does want to be able to speak with him, to calibrate, especially given how on the edge he is. But she eyes the heavier gags. Some other time. He might like them.

He’s a little on edge again when she returns, but settles the moment she touches him, and opens his mouth without fuss. She buckles him up, smoothes down his hair, makes sure he can speak intelligibly enough, and then undoes her gauntlets, laying them aside atop his cage. He leans into her bare hands with a hungry noise, and she drags nails down his back. His chest. The sensitive skin of his inner arms, bared with how he’s bound. Dimitri melts into it, panting breaths in rhythm with the long strokes, the softest moans that he can’t quite bite back with leather between his teeth.

Edelgard works him until he’s boneless in his cuffs, trembling slightly, criss-crossed with red stripes and hardening a little despite his lingering turmoil. She pinches his nipples, plays with his cock just to remind him that she can, digs her nails in low on his ass, tender skin over hard muscle. “Mine,” she hisses, buzzing with the thrill of having him like this, naked and helpless against her imperial garb, and a delicious shiver runs through him.

“Yours,” he answers, only a little garbled by his chew toy.

“Now.” She gives him one last squeeze, peels off to open the closet. “Let’s see what you like.”

His eye goes a little wild, she notices over her shoulder, as he takes in everything dangling from hooks. Canes, crops, paddles, floggers, small to large, soft to harsh. It’s only appropriate for the Emperor to be well-equipped, after all. Even if she’s only taken one submissive before, and Hubert’s tastes for pain run to the particularly cruel and intimate. She’s certainly not going to start on Dimitri’s balls, the poor thing.

“Anything catch your eye?” she calls, not particularly expecting an answer. He’s mute, breathing fast—she can see it heave his ribs and belly with how he’s strung up, and finally manages to shake his head.

She hesitates for a long moment. Something to hit him with, or some other form of pain? On the one hand, there are the brands on his chest; on the other hand, the welts on his back. He claws at himself when he’s upset, bites himself. He enjoys combat. She takes a moment to wonder what she’d prefer, if she sought pain—somebody up in her face, working her helpless body with pincers or hot wax, or the pounding viscerality of impact?

She bites her lip, shivers, and reaches for a riding crop. He’s an equestrian. He’d know it’s a tool designed to never wound a steed.

He keeps breathing fast as she comes back with it, eye tracking her, but he doesn’t seem particularly afraid. Just like he’s rushing up to another precipice—submitting to her, being intimate with her, now letting her hurt him, with everything that’s gone between them—and she steps back into the heat of his body, holds his collar as he hovers on the edge, and slides the leather of the slapper over his chest.

“Tell me what you want,” she says softly, all the weight of her dominance behind it, and he sags like his knees have given out, head bowing.

“Hit me,” he croaks. “El. Please.”

She flicks her wrist, catches him light and slappy right in the meat of his chest, right over his heart, and he sighs like she’s kissed him.

“Oh,” she breathes, and matches it on the other side, and he sways a little in bliss. “You’ve needed this. So badly.”

She takes a step back for better aim. His chest, the fronts of his spread and corded thighs. Easy targets. His feet shuffle a little, not that the magic allows him much play, as she works over his legs. The brisk smack of leather against skin, the rasp of his breathing. She’s entranced, thrumming with energy. A rain of blows, rising intensity, until his skin blooms pink—his blood comes up so easily, he’ll probably mark easily too, and the prospect makes her own blood sing.

She circles him, keeping contact with one hand at first, to test how he is with her at his back, and he shivers, but it doesn’t feel like fear. A thrum as she slides the leather up one long leg, across his ass, and—and he’s backing into it. “Good boy,” she murmurs, and reaches up to take a fistful of his hair, anchoring them both.

The crop practically bounces off his ass. She bares her teeth in excitement, wonders how he’ll take a paddle, and puts her arm into him—that’s a moan, unfettered, as he rocks in his cuffs. She smacks him until pink blotches cover his ass and thighs, then risks moving up his back, and he doesn’t falter. Except for a strange shiver when she hits one of the messier scars—probably best to avoid those when she can. She tugs his hair to calm him, then has to let go to get a good angle. He really is too damn tall. She’ll have him bent over next time, maybe strapped ass-up to a bench so she can really go to town on him…

“El,” he says, hands twitching in his cuffs.

She pauses, keeps contact, leaning into him. “Yes?”

“Do you…can you…” It’s like every word is a struggle. She finds his hair again, pulls in encouragement. “Heavier?”

A paddle, she thinks, or a flogger. She strokes down his spine, nape to ass. “How’s your back? Do you want more there or less?”

He’s quiet for a long moment, long enough that steps around to check his face. He’s wide-eyed, worrying at his strap, and there’s a mess of drool on his chin that she’s not even entirely sure he’s noticed. “More,” he says at last, shaking in his cuffs. “Take it back. Take it. From her.”

She cups his cheek, stretches up to kiss his lips around the leather in his mouth, and he makes a soft broken noise that runs her straight through. She drags nails down his chest, pink crop-marks already fading, and digs them in over his heart. “Breathe while I get a flogger. Just breathe.”

He nods, wordless. Hangs quiet in his bonds. Breathes.

She hangs the crop back up, then hovers over the row of floggers for a moment. Deerskin, a soft tease. Elk, far heavier but luxuriously squishy, weight with little pain. Tack leather, almost as heavy and with a far sharper bite. Braided tails, lighter but harsh, one of Hubert’s favorites. Cord with blood knots on the end, the cruelest of the lot, and she’s left Hubert dripping red with that once.

She leaves behind the deerskin and the cord. Gathers the rest to drop on an ottoman, closer at hand, and finally, almost reluctantly, sheds the big circle of her cloak, draping it over his cage. She can swing an axe in it without difficulty, but she’d look like an idiot if she winged her own cloak with the backstroke of a flogger, now wouldn’t she?

Edelgard takes the elk flogger in hand. Circles Dimitri as he breathes, deep and slow and dutiful, hands fidgeting. Draws the tails over his skin, thick and butter-soft, and watches him quiet in surprise at the gentleness.

“The others are harsher,” she says. “But we’re starting here. I can go until you scream, never fear. Until you cry, until you bleed, if that’s what you want. And you have permission. Don’t hold yourself back. Don’t try to tough it out. That’s not what this is about.” His eye widens just a touch. “Let yourself feel it, Dimitri. Really feel it, lighting up your skin, stirring your blood.” He’s harder, she notices, and she reaches down to give him a few strokes, making him quiver slack-faced between pleasure and the anticipation of pain. “I can’t take what you don’t give me. So give me everything you feel.”

Dimitri swears, once, fervent and barely audible, face blooming scarlet, and bows his head. She’s not sure he’s got words by now. Does it matter? She kisses his forehead, tugs his collar possessively, and rounds him.

The first stroke knocks a moan out of him that sounds almost like the one he makes when she buries a finger in his ass.

She hisses, riding a wave of her own arousal, and follows up. A steady rhythm, a smooth twirl of the flogger tails, catching him square on one side of his back, then the other. She doesn’t usually use one this heavy—Hubert likes it light and vicious—but it’s not like she tires easily. He groans softly, sways, melts under it like he’s getting a massage.

A long bullwhip, the sort of thing that makes those old welts sewn into his skin—those take time to swing. Heavy strokes. Interspersed with screams, blood. So she keeps it steady with the flogger, a gentle heartbeat—slower than hers rattling her ribs, no doubt slower than his right now. She keeps it high on his broad shoulders, avoiding the deep furrow of his old scar from Duscur. She puts a little more strength into it, and he rocks under the weight of the blows, still seems in no particular pain. The elk is soft, so that’s hardly surprising. A good warmup. His back is shading to pink, a little splotchy.

She tosses the elk aside. Reaches for the heavier leather. Runs nails over his blood-warm skin and he trembles with a thready whine like she’s never heard from him. “More?” she growls, and he shivers head to toe, hands fisting.

“More. Please.”

The thick leather tails slap across his back like the window-shaking rain that rolls off the south sea in the winter, and he gasps between strap and teeth. She paces this one a touch slower, letting him wallow in it, but still keeps it steady. He groans, heady, all the muscles in his back rippling as he tests his bonds, strains, sags again under the next blow. “I’ve got you,” Edelgard says. “I’ve got you.”

He jerks in the cuffs. Makes a ragged noise as the flogger hits him. Jerks again. “El…”

“Yes. You’re here. You’re mine.” She’s not sure that it isn’t nonsense. There’s nothing but the flogger and his back and _him_.

“Yes,” he echoes, broken by a gasp. “Yes.”

She puts more strength into it. He rocks; he makes a low, exultant cry; his flesh ripples under the blow. This one’s painting him red, slowly—bloodless, of course, streaks of color coming up under his skin. Every few strokes, she goes hard, the slap of leather echoing off the wood-paneled walls, not quite predictable. He sways with it. A better dancer under a flogger than he’d ever been in the ballroom. Ragged noises on every stroke. _Fuck, Dimitri_ , she thinks, and isn’t sure she isn’t saying it out loud.

Time means nothing. Tremors run down his legs. She wonders dimly how hard he is, but she’d have to stop flogging him to check, and why would she do that? Why would she ever want to stop this when he’s suffering so beautifully, when he’s loving it so earnestly? To get the next flogger, she supposes, that’s why. The braided leather. “Dimitri,” she says, with only the slightest pause. One blow, light, just to keep them buzzing.

“El…” It’s vague, wet like he’s got a mouthful of drool around his strap. “El…” Another blow, like a question. He keens softly. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Yes. Tes…test me. Please.”

Edelgard tosses the flogger on the floor, surges to her tiptoes, and latches her teeth into the root of his neck, as high as she can reach. Fingers digging into his hips, crown clinking against his collar. He cries out, pleading, as she sucks hard, burning a mark into him—she _needs_ to, there’s nothing else she can even do, it’s like he’s reached right down into the core of who she is as a dominant and brought it all down on him like a tidal wave.

“Beautiful idiot man,” she says in a rush. “Oh yes. I will test you, I will take you apart, you’re mine, your skin is mine, your pain is mine, if anybody tries to hurt you again I will rip them apart—” She catches herself, swallows hard. Nips once over the swelling purple bruise she’s left on him, tiny red pinpricks where she’d almost broken his skin.

She’ll have to be careful not to hit it with the flogger. It’s a very distant thought. But at least she still has that much presence of mind.

She cards nails down his back, and when he says that perfect _please_ again, she digs them deep into his ass and only pries them out so she can reach the third flogger.

“Scream if you need to,” she growls, and strikes for his reddened back without mercy.

He doesn’t quite scream. Quite. He goes rigid, a choked cry, hands fisting.

“Weep if you need to,” she goes on with the second blow. “That.” The third, and he rocks with that one finally, unclenching. “Is the test.” The fourth, and his cry is louder. “Let yourself go.” The fifth, and he’s not quite screaming, it’s certainly not a howl of sheer pain, but it’s _something_ , he’s starting to fall open, and she keeps pushing. Harder. There are red flecks coming up now, skin raw under the braided buzz of the flogger’s tails, and he still sounds like she’s fucking him. Like she’s pounding him into the floor, and when they do this again, she’ll strap something on, stretch him out and plug him up, so she can yank it out and impale him the moment he’s done—

“G-goddess,” he chokes out. “El, please, wait I’m—”

She stops, grabs his hip because she needs to touch him if she’s not flogging him. “What is it, Dimitri?”

“I—I thought I was going to—“ He jolts forward and back in the cuffs, head bowed. “May I, may I. Come.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” she bites out, and lets go to take a swing at him. “Yes. Let yourself go.” Another blow; she speeds up a little, coaxing, since she’d just let him slide off that edge. “Come for me, Dimitri.” Fuck, she wishes she had a mirror to watch his face. “Come for me.” Blow after blow, harder, faster—he screams, low and growling like it’s tearing itself out of his chest. “Come for me.”

He goes rigid, twists hard in the cuffs, and _yells_. A second spasm as she gives him one last blow, lighter, and he pants, choked and raw. White drips to the carpet. His hands clutch at thin air, frantic, but the magic holds him up.

She tosses the flogger aside and rounds him. Catches his collar in one hand. He’s gasping, wild-eyed, flushed all down his chest. Almost frantically bewildered. She cups his cheek in her other hand, holds him snug until his breathing starts to even out. “Beautiful,” she whispers, urgent. “Better than I could have expected. Good boy.”

* * *

Edelgard puts Dimitri on his knees, feeds him fresh water and a sweet bun, and holds him until he settles. She’s still buzzing, aroused, but he’s limp and quiet, and she’s considering riding his face—or his hands, she wants so much more right now—but she really should check in on him first.

“I’m…good,” he says, slow and hazy, as she strokes his face and coaxes out words. He’s a little shivery as his skin cools and the blood-high wears off, and she casts about for something warm—her cloak. That’s far easier than wrestling the coverlet off the bed. She drapes it heavy around his shoulders, perches on the cage in its place, and he curls contented under its weight, one hand twitching up to hold one edge against his cheek. “Everything is…so quiet,” he says eventually. “Like…like after a good training session. But more. So much more. Thank you.”

She hums acknowledgement, smoothing his hair off his forehead. “It seems like pain does help you. Some submissives use training as a way to satisfy that need, you know.”

He blinks slowly. “I…didn’t know. ‘Splains a lot about Felix.” He’s quiet for a moment, then adds, “Barely even felt like pain.”

“Well, you’re a masochist.” She tugs his hair fondly, and he closes his eye in bliss. “That’s how it should be. And I can go much harder if you like.”

“That was…perfect. I didn’t think, I didn’t know I could…”

“Come like that?” she asks briskly, just to enjoy his embarrassment. “It’s a rare delight. You were stunning, you know.”

“Th…thank you. El.”

“I do want to hear from you tomorrow about how you’re feeling after this.” She tweaks his nose because it’s there. “Write to me, if nothing else. I want to know what kind of effect this has on you.”

“Yes.” He’s quiet for a moment, then, like it’s drifting across his mind, “I…would too, I think. I keep a journal. For my…moods. The doctor suggested it. He’s been so much help.”

She tilts her head, reaching down to touch his forearm—the little red crescents are fading slowly, since he hadn’t quite broken skin. “Do you have a sense, then, of what brought this on?”

His brows twitch as he rummages. “I don’t…think it was anything beyond myself. My mind is…” He trails off, mouth twisting. “If I could just wish it away…”

“I was…worried, I admit. To have to send you away. If this is because I’m not able to give you enough—”

“No,” he blurts, looking up at her urgent and pleading. “No, El. I can only begin to imagine how important Hubert is to you. I would not take your time with him. And your duties to your crown, your people, stand even above that.”

She blinks, almost taken aback, then leans down to kiss his forehead. He subsides, one hand moving to snug around her calf.

“My mind,” Dimitri says, slow and quiet in the small warm space of her curled body. “It may…forever be unquiet. It comes and goes, like clouds in the winter. I do not know if anything can heal it. There are…there are ways to make it easier. You.” His fingers brush his collar. “This. You and what you have given me are a light beyond measure. But it is not your failing that the clouds still come.”

She holds the back of his collar and kisses his forehead again, because what else can she do? “And your strength, that which lets you hold on until the clouds part again, is remarkable. I would not collar somebody who I did not hold in respect.”

“I know.” He folds a hand over hers with a careful squeeze. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t believe that.” Then he blinks, doubt creeping into his face. “Oh, El—are you, I’m sorry, should I do something for you? Tonight, I mean?”

She hushes him. “Sweet boy. I’m inclined to let you rest and enjoy this. You seem like you’re quite done for the evening. I can always…hmm.” She doesn’t know where Hubert is, though she’s guessing he’ll be around sooner rather than later. Though she doesn’t want to send Dimitri off—he looks like a man who wants to crawl into his cage in peace. There’s always the sitting room, she supposes, she could let Lady Celestine into the bedroom instead…

The door unlatches.

Dimitri twitches once, then subsides as Edelgard smoothes a hand over his hair. There is only one other who would ever enter this room unannounced, after all.

Hubert pads inside, closes the door, and takes in the scene. The tossed-aside floggers. The oversized scarlet-cloaked puddle between Edelgard’s legs. “Should I leave?” he asks, a shade less dry than she might expect.

She hesitates for a long moment, and she isn’t sure what hunger is showing in her eyes, but she can see an answering spark of heat in his, his nostrils flaring as he draws a deep breath.

“I don’t know,” she says, with the venturing care of a scout in contested territory. “Should he leave, Dimitri?”

Dimitri, who might well say yes if she announced she was crowning him the King of Albinea on the morrow, just shakes his head.

Edelgard keeps one hand in his hair. And lifts the other to Hubert, palm up. “Make this time for me?” she asks gently. An offer. Not an order.

Hubert’s still for a moment, eyes flicking between her and the back of Dimitri’s head. “I don’t mind his presence, Your Majesty. I’d prefer for him not to be specifically involved at the moment.”

Edelgard smiles, small and fond. “Of course. That would involve him moving, after all, and I’ve rather worn him out.” Dimitri makes a wordless noise, questioning, and she pets him with her other hand. “You may rest. Enjoy the quiet this has brought you. I’ll send you to your cage soon.”

He goes boneless against her. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

“Then,” Hubert answers after a calculating pause, “I am yours.” And he catches her hand, bows to kiss her palm. “Your Majesty.”

“Oh, Hubert,” Edelgard sighs, chest swelling, and catches his collar in turn to drag him down for a kiss. Hubert’s thin-lipped, studiously thorough and devastating kisses, the warm leather of his collar under her hand. She can’t resist the urge to move her other hand down to Dimitri’s collar, skin-hot metal, the welcome bulk of him against her thigh. “I have been given an embarrassment of riches,” she murmurs against Hubert’s lips when they part from the kiss.

“It is no less than you deserve, Your Majesty,” Hubert says, with a singularly alarming lack of irony. “Shall I strip and take my place, then?”

Edelgard takes the fact that he hasn’t already as a small nervousness. He’s as unfond of his body as she is, albeit for different reasons, and Dimitri has never seen him with so much as a button undone. “Take my hair down first, dear Hubert. And tell me what has you on edge.”

Hubert reaches for the hidden pins along the base of one horn with expert ease. “I was drawn into a meeting with Myson,” he says with a thin sigh.

Dimitri lifts his head, drawing breath between his teeth. Right—he knows all their names.

“There are no emergencies,” Hubert adds, “and the situation has not changed. It was merely aggravating.”

Dimitri gives a soft moan, almost a hum, and Edelgard looks down to see her hand white-knuckled in his hair. He’s not protesting, nor upset, so she kneads him to soothe herself, since Hubert’s otherwise occupied. “I see,” she says. “Well, if you have had enough of troublesome conversations, why don’t you go find that gag with the dildo on the front? Once you’re done with my hair, of course.”

“Your Majesty,” Hubert says, voice roughening. Dimitri hums in bewilderment, face warming against her thigh.

“Oh, yes,” Edelgard says fondly. “That exists. My closet has any number of whimsies. I’m sure we’ll find all your favorites in time.” She twirls a strand of his hair as he flushes. “Do you think your cage will get stuffy if we cover one or two sides of it?”

Hubert touches a gloved finger under her chin, and she turns her head to let him unpin the other horn—he can’t work from behind her like usual, given where she’s sitting. He’s almost relaxed by Hubert standards. The half-lidded look that means he isn’t particularly under yet, but will be soon.

“No,” Dimitri murmurs. “That…sounds nice.”

“Lovely,” she says, and keeps petting him, and thinks of what she might wish to do to Hubert as she rides a dildo strapped to his face. Something wicked to his cock, no doubt. “Hubert,” she says pleasantly. “Finish my hair, strip, gag yourself, and fetch cord and clothespins.”

“Your Majesty,” he says again, and she watches his eyes darken with arousal as he carefully lifts the crown from her head. There’s a faint rasp in his voice, an edge of awareness in him. She isn’t sure what effect it’s having on him, for Dimitri who he is so invested in terrorizing to hear him take a humiliating order, but it does not seem to be a wretched one. Perhaps something she’ll need to tease out of him later.

“Dimitri,” she continues, loosening her grip on him. “Go get dressed for bed. Then let me kiss you good night. I’ll cover the cage.” She takes a moment to fold her cloak off of him. “It’s just occurred to me—you normally sleep with all your lamps on, don’t you?”

“I do.” He looks almost small as he emerges. Hubert goes to set her crown on her dresser and pick up brush and comb, and she leans over to check Dimitri’s back. The red-fleck marks are fading. No bleeding. Good enough. “But it’s different here,” he says, bowing so she can inspect him. “I can hear you sometimes. I know I’m not alone, so that helps. And I like the cage. Even if I panic in a nightmare, I know I won’t hurt you.”

Hubert freezes for a split second, hairbrush in hand, looking at Dimitri over his shoulder with an expression she can’t decipher.

“Well, I hope you don’t hurt yourself either,” she says, and gives a quick squeeze to the nape of his neck before letting him slowly pick himself up to find his pajamas. “Leave the brush, Hubert,” she calls. “Just comb out the roots before they get worse. I need you.”

“Your Majesty,” he says, with a hint of a smile. He really is worn thin tonight, she thinks. Not nearly as sharp-tongued as usual. Well, he won’t even have to worry about that much soon enough.

Hubert combs out her roots. Dimitri gets into his pajamas. She lays one foot on her knee to undo her armored boot, then the other. Hubert’s undressing is certainly a sensual experience, but she hasn’t much patience left. She bids Dimitri goodnight, and he goes into his cage, and she lays her cloak over it, blocking one side.

Hubert puts the comb back, strips, rummages, and returns with the black strap of the gag cutting across his face, the dildo jutting out like a misplaced horn, and his eyes dark and hungry above it.

A few of the scarlet dags at the hem of Edelgard’s cloak disappear, drawn into the cage like Dimitri is clutching them as he drifts off.

* * *

Dimitri comes early the next evening, calm and sometimes even smiling, to tell her that his mood is lifted. That he’s glad she framed it how she did, that the things she said had been just as helpful as the flogging itself, and that he would very much like to do what he hadn’t been able to the night before. Which means that by the time Hubert trickles in, late after secret meetings, with Dimitri already snoring in his cage, Edelgard is a limp and entirely satisfied puddle, devoured and fucked silly.

Hubert, upon further prodding in private, admits only that he’d like to avoid letting Dimitri see him in particularly vulnerable states, at least for now. And as for the future, all he says is that the situation is changing with annoying speed. But at least they’re not dancing about each other at such a distance to be unbearably awkward.

Then, a few weeks later, as she is decimating Ferdinand at chess while arguing about how quickly it will be possible to build a school system—an entirely enjoyable activity on all fronts—one of Hubert’s agents slips in the door. Which, by definition, means urgent news. Ferdinand watches, alert, as the ear-whisper is delivered. “You Majesty, the guest in the old parlor attempted to leave.”

Edelgard stiffens, a knot of ice forming in her gut. “Ferdinand, my apologies.”

“Of course. Should I mark down the game to resume later?”

She stands. “I’ll have you in check in three moves. You’d do far better to mark down that budget estimate, I think.”

“I would do so even if you ordered otherwise,” Ferdinand says brightly, and stands for a bow, ever polite, even as Edelgard is already heading for the door, agent in tow. “And I look forward to refining my calculations. Good luck in this matter!”

“Is he—gone?” Edelgard says the moment the door closes behind them.

“No, Your Majesty. He’s unharmed. His restraints activated successfully in the upper chantry corridor. The Marquis requests your presence in your chambers.”

Relief hits her like warm water. “Thank you.” Edelgard turns down the shortest path—not far, at least, from Ferdinand’s favorite sitting room. “He should have ordered you to lead with that, you know.”

There’s a quirk of a smile under the edge of the half-mask. Edelgard recognizes the faint scar on the woman’s chin, the mole near her lip. One of Hubert’s trusted best. “The Marquis von Vestra is capricious at times, Your Majesty,” she says diplomatically.

“I’m going to smack him,” Edelgard sighs. “Did our guest resist being retrieved?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“I see.” Another rush of relief. “What were you thinking, Dimitri,” she murmurs under her breath, but there can of course be no answer. Not until she arrives in her office.

“Hubert,” she says dryly, and as he turns, she reaches up to slap him ringing on one cheek. “You could have led with him being alive and safe, you know.”

His eyes widen a touch, then he bows his head. “My apologies, Your Majesty. That was the likely outcome of an attempted escape, given our precautions.”

“Still,” she says, and tugs his forelock. “Where is he?”

Hubert gestures Edelgard through the open door of the bedroom.

The miscreant is on his knees, collar magically leashed to the floor, ankles pinned in place, arms still cuffed behind him. The mage’s robe is gone, leaving him in his underthings and a sleeveless tunic. Hubert’s taken the liberty of locking a set of branks on his head, which arrests Edelgard’s attention on several levels.

“You do enjoy presenting him to me, don’t you?” Edelgard murmurs, contemplative. In her bedroom, no less. Not back in the stocks in his cell. Another thread of alarm in her belly uncoils, settles. For all his drama, even Hubert isn’t taking this _entirely_ seriously.

Hubert declines to comment. Dimitri stirs and fights the limit of his leash with a wet, wordless grunt around the metal shoved in his mouth, then quiets when he sees Edelgard. He studies her, a little nervous from what she can read behind the steel cage on his face, but he breathes a little slower when he sees her.

Edelgard takes a steadying breath of her own. He doesn’t seem angry. Which in itself, she thinks, is telling. He rearranges a little as she paces towards him, like he’s trying to settle into a more comfortable, proper form. She catches one bar of the branks—it’s really a lovely handle—and he makes another one of those wordless noises. The front of his tunic is spattered with drool, and his face heats as she notices it.

“I’ll have these off in a moment, Dimitri. I need to talk to you, and decide what action will be appropriate.” Action, not punishment. She can’t deny the possibility that he’d enjoy such a thing, and she’s not yet sure something enjoyable would be the right choice. As much as it’s tempting.

He gives a _hn_ , leans into her subliminally.

She tilts her head, looks over to Hubert. “You didn’t answer me.”

Dimitri inhales, a quiver running through him. Hubert’s reaction is far more subtle, a slight widening of his eyes, but his hands flicker at his sides. Not quite behind his back, but creeping closer. “I enjoy serving you in all things, Your Majesty—”

“That’s not an answer.”

They both sag an inch under the force of her voice. She can feel the weight of Dimitri’s head settling in the branks as he bows, sliding further under in her hands.

Hubert swallows, once, and there’s a dusky flush coming high on his cheeks. Oh, that one’s rare, and so very revealing. “Yes. I enjoy putting him in his place for you, Your Majesty.”

“And you,” Edelgard says, giving the lightest of tugs on the branks, then releasing them so he can answer. “You were already a little under when I came in, weren’t you?”

A nod, slow, his own face heating against the metal. She circles him, letting him feel the weight of the inspection, then leans over in his face to study it, tracing warm skin under the bars of the branks. His eye hazes. So easy to put him under now.

“Did you struggle, Dimitri, when he put that gag in your mouth?”

He looks like he wants to fight her for a moment, hold it back, but then shakes his head, a slight jerk, flushing crimson.

She slides fingers in around the mouthpiece, feeling his lips and tongue. No damage. It’s the one with dulled spikes on the flat wedge of metal: not sharp enough to rend flesh, but wretchedly uncomfortable. He wears it in a rising haze of submission and arousal, swaying almost dizzy on his knees as she forces his attention on the branks, on her, on his own desire.

“Was it because you didn’t want to hurt yourself?” she asks, already fairly certain of the answer, but she needs to know. Needs him to give it.

He squeezes his eye shut, shakes his head. Self-destructive as always. She drags wet fingers down his chin and pulls the ring of his collar.

“Was it because you wanted him to punish you?”

He barely even struggles this time. Just nods with a wretched little noise.

“Your Majesty,” Hubert says levelly. “If he enjoys this, we should desist. It’s a poor precedent to set after an attempt to escape.”

“Well, let’s see.” She holds up a palm. “Key, Hubert.”

She barely looks at him as he places the key in her palm, but she can tell he’s fighting the urge to kneel. But, because he’s Hubert, he keeps to his feet, circles back to a watcher’s distance, determined to keep control of the situation. Which she won’t deny him. He does have a point.

One lock holds the cage together at the back of Dimitri’s head; she undoes it and shoves it in her pocket. “Open your mouth,” she says, and he obeys, letting her take it off without fuss. He swallows, licks his lips, as if he can do anything about the wet mess on his chin. “Now.” She straightens to stand over him, branks dangling in one hand. “Look at me.” He does, immediately, breathing a little fast. She can see his chest moving under the thin fabric of his tunic, and drags nails over the swell of one tricep without much thought. “Why did you run?”

“I had to test.” He speaks slowly, almost drugged, painfully frank. “Whether the spell was real.” Hubert stirs at that, wordless, but she can hear him move. “What you would do.”

“And if it hadn’t been? If you’d kept walking free through the palace?”

He blinks, wordless. “I…don’t know.” And swallows. “I didn’t have plans. Go back, I suppose. Or keep going and see when Hubert’s people found me.” His brow furrows. “I took your collar, El. If I sought freedom, I wouldn’t just run.”

There’s a thump as the branks slip from Edelgard’s hand and fall to the carpet.

She sinks down to her knees and wraps her arms around him. Kissing him, deep and lingering, and he opens for her with a soft noise of surrender. She feels _almost_ silly. He had accepted, after all. Hadn’t he said that her cage was comfortable in spite of everything? But it’s another thing to hear him say this, dragged back from rattling the bars.

“Did you have to test yourself as well?” she says quietly, pulling back just enough to study his face.

“Maybe,” he whispers. “I was…almost relieved. When the cuffs locked. I…shelter in the knowledge that I am your prisoner.”

“Because that’s easier than facing yourself if you chose to stay when you could walk away?”

“Yes. And facing…” He hesitates. He hasn’t spoken of his remaining delusion, his ghosts, for weeks. Edelgard puts a finger to his lips. He simply nods.

“Let me be clear,” Edelgard says, touching his collar. “If this happens again, we will have a different conversation, and I might be angry. I have no interest in letting a submissive manipulate me by disobedience.” Hubert, the occasional brat, makes an odd noise behind his teeth, and Edelgard adds, mostly for his sake, “Least of all you, Dimitri. You easily mire in seeking punishment in ways that only hurt you, and I don’t wish to aid you in that. But I’m also not blind to your desires. Either of you.”

“Your Majesty,” Hubert murmurs.

“You tested the tracking spell,” Edelgard continues. “Fair enough. It’s not as if I’d ordered you not to. Hubert retrieved you, and that is that. There are no further consequences for this action. Do you understand?”

He nods, obediently silent.

“You may speak for now,” she adds.

“Yes, El. I.” He draws a deep slow breath, lets it out. “I understand.”

“What will happen now is a consequence not of your actions, but of your reactions and your desires. It is neither a reward nor a punishment. Simply my decision. Do you understand?”

“I…think so.” He worries lightly at his lip, eye searching her face, and stops when she touches his mouth again. “It seems strange to me,” he admits. “But I will do my best to believe it.”

It’s the best she can expect. She nods again, and pulls him by the collar for another kiss. Then she stands. “Hubert.”

“Your Majesty.” He’s been holding up a wall, arms folded, and straightens at her word, chin lifting.

“You’d like to discipline him, would you not?” They both inhale, Hubert guarded, Dimitri shaky. Edelgard holds up a finger. “And do not play coy with me tonight. You two are being quite a handful.”

Hubert bows deeply, arms clasped behind his back. Not the bow of one noble to another, but the bow of a submissive accepting an order when it is impractical to kneel. He’s struggling just a little, she can tell, but the thought of putting Dimitri in his place has his eyes sparking. “I will admit it’s an appealing prospect,” he says to the floor.

She takes a fistful of Dimitri’s hair, squeezing, and he gives a subliminal moan. “I’ll observe,” she says, “and perhaps join in time. We’ll stay here—we’re not exactly short on supplies. Keep it finite, perhaps an hour or two, or much less as you wish. I may direct, but I’m interested in seeing what you’ll do to him.” She pulls hard, forcing Dimitri’s head back. “As for you, you will of course obey me if I direct you.”

His face goes a little slack, flush spreading down his neck. “Yes, El,” he breathes.

She makes her voice steel. “And you _will_ signal as needed. As always.”

“Yes, El,” he says, and doesn’t back out.

“Hubert,” she says. “Shall I order him to obey you?”

Hubert’s straightened by now, and he moves one hand from behind his back to call the light of a spell circle at his fingertips, the glow lighting his gaunt face. “I intend to leave him no choice, Your Majesty. If he wishes to test his leash, let him find that his struggles are in vain, and he shall be dragged back to suffer for your entertainment, since he is so set upon it.”

Dimitri whines, wordless, in Edelgard’s grip. “Hush, you,” she says, and lets go of his hair so she can fold her hands over his ears. She jerks her chin at Hubert, who drops the spell circle and leans in. “Please do surprise us,” she murmurs. “No hot wax for him, though, I think. I haven’t tested that yet. Don’t blindfold him or mute his hearing.”

Hubert nods. “Unsurprising,” he whispers in answer. “Do you think he’ll take well to a predicament?”

“I don’t see why not. He enjoys being tested.”

“How’s his anal training?”

Edelgard feels her heart lift, her cunt warm. “He’s receptive but inexperienced, and it’s a lot for him, especially hard toys. I’ve worked him up to the pink ceramic one.”

Hubert’s smile shades dangerous. “Oh, he has so much farther to go.”

* * *

“If Her Majesty was using this,” Hubert says, setting the dildo on a hard-seated chair he’s dragged in from Edelgard’s adjoining office, “she would no doubt work you up gently.”

Dimitri, still shackled on his knees, looks up at it, and his eye goes wide. Edelgard, settled in the armchair by her vanity, settles her chin on her knuckles, already breathing fast.

“Unfortunately for you,” Hubert continues, “I don’t much care about such niceties. If nothing else, you’ll take it to the root once your legs give out.” He smiles, gaunt and dramatic. “Don’t worry. I’ll have plenty of distractions for you.”

“Saints,” Dimitri chokes out, very small.

It’s one of the largest Edelgard has. Thick-stuffed leather, so at least it has some give, but it’s still a good seven or eight inches long. The tip is perfectly reasonable, but it swells along its length for just such an occasion, and the base is the width of a small fist.

“You know perfectly well they won’t save you,” Hubert says, and drifts to the closet. Dimitri breathes fast, open-mouthed, struggles vaguely in his bonds, until Hubert returns with a ring gag dangling from one fingertip. “Let’s curb that tongue of yours.” He circles behind him, holds it up to his face. “Open.”

Dimitri focuses on it for a moment, and Edelgard watches his chest rise and fall, quick and shallow, thick with nerves and heady desire, until he finally opens his mouth and lets Hubert work the ring between his teeth. It’s a tight fit, and Dimitri rocks a little as Hubert pulls the strap snug, makes one small noise which almost seems to startle him.

“Oh, yes,” Hubert drawls. “You won’t be able to hold anything back from Her Majesty. Perhaps if I’m feeling generous, I’ll put something in there later.” He dips still-gloved fingertips into Dimitri’s mouth, and she can’t quite see what he’s doing except that it’s under Dimitri’s tongue and it makes him flinch and moan, bowing his head like a puppet on strings. Fresh drool shines on his chin once Hubert releases him. “Now. You are Her Majesty’s collared submissive, kneeling before her as is your place. Can you tell me what is wrong with this picture?”

He can’t, of course. He makes some confused whine, flattened to a hollow _ah-ah_ with his mouth forced open.

“You are wearing entirely too many clothes.” Dimitri nods, apology silenced, red with shame. Hubert slides a knife out of his sleeve. Dimitri flinches, eye widening, and Hubert adds, almost kindly, “Let us correct that. Look to your lady, for it is she you are here to amuse.”

Dimitri makes a tremulous noise, stills, and his eye finds Edelgard. “Good boy,” she murmurs, barely audible even in the deep soundproofed quiet of her chamber.

He can’t thank her, but still he moans. _Ah oo, Eh._

Hubert crouches to take a handful of his shirt, slip the knife in with perfect precision, and start to cut. It doesn’t even come close to his skin, and by the time he’s down to his underthings, Dimitri’s relaxed a little. A few shreds of cloth cling to his legs, pinned there by how he’s kneeling, but they’ll fall away when he stands. He’s already fully hard.

“Now,” Hubert says, tucking the knife away and standing. “Let’s see.” He closes his eyes for a moment, pressing his palms together, and light flares at his fingertips. It looks like the spell circles for the cuffs and collar, Edelgard thinks, but far more elaborate. There are elements she doesn’t recognize—runes for motion, perhaps?

Hubert moves his hands, unleashing the spell, and a crate rattles in the closet.

He’d had a few lengths of chain sent up, strong enough to hold Dimitri, that could be linked by the same magic that does the cuffs. She’d known that. What she hadn’t realized is just how finely he could control them. They spin out of the closet, float clattering across the room, and Edelgard can’t help a moment of wide-eyed wonder. Neither can Dimitri, though it’s as much nervous anticipation for him.

One length coils on the carpet, falling still. The other latches onto Dimitri’s wrist cuffs even as they loosen and rearrange. When it’s done, they’re not folded comfortably in the small of his back, but dragged down, palm to palm, forcing his shoulders back and his chest into an arch. The chain swirls even as Hubert’s glowing hands swirl, wraps a few times around Dimitri’s chest, arms and all, and pulls snug. Snug enough to squeeze a breathless gasp out of him, eye pleading over the gag as links dig into his skin. Then they relax, just enough to not be obviously painful.

The end lifts to the ceiling, and the back of his collar attaches itself to one link with a heavy click, holding him that much more securely. Dimitri moans raw and helpless, sinking into his bonds, and Edelgard can see his cock twitch, red and aching.

His ankles and collar unlatch from the floor, and then Hubert raises one hand and Dimitri rises with it. He makes a raw noise, startled, and tries to scrabble his feet under him until he’s hanging there like a scruffed kitten, tip-toes barely reaching the ground. The last shreds of his clothing waft away. Except for one rag stuck to his inner thigh, which Hubert flicks off disdainfully as he circles him, still holding the spell glowing in one hand as he surveys his work.

“Are you feeling any sharp pain?” Hubert asks coolly.

Dimitri fidgets, not that he can move much, and then shakes his head.

“Good.” Hubert pinches one of his nipples, casual, hard enough to make him groan. “It is not my intent to damage my lady’s possessions.” Dimitri makes a shaky noise at that, eye searching Edelgard, and she gives him a small, fierce smile, and arranges herself with elaborate leisure in the armchair.

“Once you’ve set him up, Hubert, I’d like a glass of wine. And for you to help me into something more comfortable. I believe that is how this is done.”

“Quite so, Your Majesty,” Hubert says, sketching a bow even as he holds his casting hand steady. He lowers Dimitri a few inches, enough for his feet to reach ground. “Come now.”

And he pulls. Dimitri totters along with it, feet fumbling in the carpet, but it’s not as if he’s got any choice. The chain’s holding most of his weight, Edelgard would guess. He whines as he’s pulled up to the chair, struggling a little in spite of himself.

Hubert smiles his very best ghastly smile, clearly drinking in his fear. “It’s possible, if that’s what you’re wondering. You’ll have to relax, of course.” Another hard pinch and twist of a nipple. “I’m guessing, from your nature, that a little pain will help with that.”

A flick of Hubert’s wrist connects the chain to the ceiling, holding Dimitri over his threatening seat. Another spell reactivates the ankle cuffs, forcing his legs wide open. Dimitri’s panting, steely thighs shaking a little as he looks down at himself—not that he can even see the dildo anymore.

Hubert makes a considering noise, and reaches behind him to fiddle with the strap of the gag. Edelgard guesses, from the strained noise Dimitri makes and the way his face turns up, that he’s rebuckled it on the other side of the chain, or perhaps threaded through a link. No turning away or bowing his head, not unless he manages enough force to tear the strap. Her dear, thoughtful Hubert—he knows what she likes.

Utterly exposed, wordless and defenseless, Dimitri can only burn red and tremble with anticipation as Hubert circles him one more time, feeling his thighs and ass like a horsemonger would test a steed’s muscles. Edelgard squeezes her own thighs together, considers sliding a hand into her skirts—no, that can wait for Hubert. She is the Emperor. She should not have to pleasure herself. Hubert can do it once Dimitri is impaled on that thing and left to suffer.

She is definitely starting to see the appeal of Adrestian tradition.

Hubert moves leisurely to get the oil, wrap the dildo in a lambskin, strip off his gloves, and slick the thing until it’s dripping. Letting the anticipation build. He’s had the occasional dalliance, Edelgard knows. It’s not as if his submissive urges dictate his every desire: he is much of a sadist as a masochist, with a unsurprising penchant for the dramatic and an appetite for fear. Hubert has never performed for her like this, but she can see him thrilling to it, casting her glances when he’s got his back to Dimitri. He’s still fully dressed except for his gloves, but she’d guess from his gait, from the heat in his eyes, that he’s every bit as aroused as Dimitri.

Dimitri’s eye widens as he catches his first glimpse of Hubert’s magic-blackened hands, but he can’t very well ask about them now. Little wonder Hubert’s gagged him.

Hubert oils his fingers as he’s standing behind Dimitri, out of his limited range of vision. He’s silent, no hint of contact until he slides one slick finger into his ass.

Edelgard will savor that particular noise of surprise for _weeks_.

“You’re rather tight,” Hubert says, twisting his wrist as he works deeper—one finger to start, but sinking to the knuckle, which is quite deep as far as fingers go. “That won’t do.” Dimitri keeps making those raw, punched out noises, trembling in his rigidly unforgiving bonds, as Hubert works him open. Edelgard knows his hands by memory: uncannily cold, rough from the rigors of magic, spider-fingered and unerring at finding sensitive spots. A far cry from her own small hands, and all new to Dimitri.

She isn’t entirely sure what her face is doing, except she’s leaning forward hungrily, and Dimitri drops her gaze, like she’s spilling so much dominance he can’t even meet her eyes. Or he’s just humiliated. Or both.

She also knows the electrified moans Dimitri makes when she hits his prostate by now, and those aren’t much changed by the gag. Hubert’s not being particularly gentle either, from the look of it, and he has far less trouble reaching it than she does. Two fingers. Three. Dimitri’s already coming undone, struggling outright with a faint clatter of tight-strung chain, and he isn’t even on the dildo.

Finally Hubert slides a foot out to catch one leg of the chair, centering it right between Dimitri’s legs, and there’s a steady stream of _ah ah ah_ from that wide-open throat like he would beg him for something if he could. But he’s not tapping out.

Hubert feeds the tip in as Dimitri shakes. “There, there,” he purrs. “That isn’t so bad, is it?”

Dimitri makes a ridiculously disgruntled noise and squirms.

“Don’t think I’ll let you off it,” Hubert says, and calls another circle with his free hand, the one not steadying the dildo in Dimitri’s ass. The other chain, the one left coiled on the floor, lifts back up at his spell, and Dimitri can only strain wide-eyed to follow it as it loops around his waist, locks itself closed, and pulls down to the floor.

He sinks an inch, thighs quivering as they flex, a soft groan as the dildo slides deeper. It’s not particularly a stretch yet, not until the first few inches are in, but she can see the fear running through him, chasing arousal and humiliation across his wonderfully expressive face.

Hubert lets go of the dildo, holds the spell, and stands back, graciously not blocking Edelgard’s view. So they can both enjoy the strained wail he makes as Hubert turns his glowing palm to the floor and pushes down another inch. The chain to the ceiling, the one that keeps Dimitri from falling, lets him sink. The chain to the floor follows Hubert’s hand, and does not let him rise.

Dimitri groans, something raw blooming in his expression.

“Oh, yes,” Hubert purrs. Edelgard can’t see his face, but she can tell from his voice that he’s letting his most terrifying smile loose. “Go ahead and struggle, why don’t you? Give it everything you’ve got.”

Dimitri makes a choked noise. And does. Edelgard can see the muscles cord in his neck, his arms, most of all his thighs. He earns a little give by pulling the chain nipping tight around his narrow waist. Not enough to escape the dildo.

“Now if this was a punishment,” Hubert goes on, low and menacing. “If I truly wished to hurt you, I’d reel this chain down until you were plastered to that chair. And you know full well that all your might could not stop me.”

It’s helplessness, wild and desperate, in Dimitri’s eye. His gaze seeks Edelgard, clings to her like a lifeline, and she shifts to ride the rush of arousal, growling low between her teeth.

“But my emperor has told me to discipline you. And so you shall be tested.” He gives one more small shove of his hand, forcing Dimitri a bit lower. Not yet to the true stretch, but he might be starting to feel it. “But not broken.” The spell flares and winks out, locking the chain to the floor. He’s free to sink further, of course. But there’s no escape.

Hubert lowers his hands, all the light of the spell finally fading, and Edelgard catches the faint sigh of relief. He’d been pushing his own limits just to show off. “Hubert,” she murmurs. “Attend me, if you are finished with him for the moment.”

Hubert lets out a slightly tremulous breath, and one of his hands folds behind his back. “I did intend to give him a few more incentives. But I believe you said, Your Majesty, that you desired some wine?”

“It seems appropriate,” Edelgard says, and takes a few deep breaths of her own, leaning back to lounge. “Why don’t you get me a glass and then finish your work?”

Something in Dimitri cracks open, and he struggles again, hard, his whole body rocking in his chains as he tests every bare inch of play he’s got. He’s making raw animal noises on every breath, nostrils flaring. Edelgard has to bite down hard against some answering growl, crossing her legs as tight as she can to get some greedy little bit of pressure. Seeing him come apart like this—she’s soaked, she can feel it.

“As I’ve said,” Hubert calls dismissively as he rummages with a clink of glasses, “it is not my intent to damage Her Majesty’s property. It’s natural to feel some aching, perhaps a little burning. If there is more, especially if there is any sudden sharp pain or tearing, signal immediately.”

“That is an order, Dimitri,” Edelgard adds, enough force in her voice that she can hear Hubert’s exhale, and Dimitri shivers, makes some wide-open whine, and manages to nod an inch or two. His tongue’s on his lower lip, yearning, and Edelgard idly considers fucking his throat with her fingers. It’s hers, she can. Maybe once Hubert’s done motivating him and she’s gotten to _come_ …

A glass of wine appears in her hand, and she takes a gulp to wet her lips. She hopes it’s elegant—it’s probably not. Does Dimitri even know what this is doing to her?

Hubert bows to kiss her hand.

“Finish quickly,” she hisses, and the heat in her eyes is such that Hubert—her doggedly independent, self-controlled Hubert—cannot meet her gaze.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he murmurs, and moves back to the closet. Not running, exactly, but his cape billows in the still air of the room. It’s a small handful that he gathers, and she can’t quite see what until he returns to Dimitri and sets to work. Not rushing: he’s careful, precise. Twisting and tugging his nipples until he can set a pair of clamps on them, tight enough to make him struggle and moan. And then crouching—to one side so he doesn’t block her view—to gather up his balls.

Dimitri shivers once with a stunned little noise as Hubert touches his genitals for the first time, then goes still, accepting.

“Good boy,” Edelgard murmurs, setting her glass of wine down with great care so she doesn’t snap the stem.

Dimitri whines his gratitude to her as Hubert fastens a loop of leather around the base of his scrotum, trapping his balls, and Edelgard digs her fingers into her thigh and burns with delight.

The real incentive, it’s clear, is a strip of stretchy fabric tied between the leather band on his balls and the rungs of the chair. Tight enough now to make him wail as it pulls his balls down hard. But the lower he sinks, the easier it will be. His nipples get pulled in the opposite direction, another strip leading from each clamp over Dimitri’s shoulders to the back of the chair. “Since,” Hubert murmurs, giving one a tug, “you find pain so reassuring.” He lets a hand wander, blatantly fondling him as he trembles, helpless. “Give those a pull and let them help. Now. We shall see how much you can take while I attend to Her Majesty.”

“Hubert,” Edelgard says through her teeth, and points to the floor at her feet. “Your mouth. Now.” It’s perhaps not the most dignified command she’s ever given, but with _this_ happening, no, she does not have the patience left to change leisurely into a dressing gown or whatever else she could be doing other than coming. Dimitri groans, ragged, and she watches his cock bob like a heartbeat over his straining balls.

Hubert sinks to his knees with one brief, heated glance through his eyelashes as she pulls up her skirt. There’s some fumbling with her hose, and then he burrows between folds of fabric and wraps his lips around her clit without preamble. Good Hubert. He knows how worked up she is. She digs one hand into his hair and leaves breathing up to him. Wet-hot heat envelopes her, stokes the fire in her belly.

“Look at me, Dimitri,” she growls, white-knuckling Hubert’s hair, and his eye latches on her, and he strains like he could burst out of his chains and come to her by sheer will. “Look what you’re doing to me. You’re stunning like this.” He whines, red-faced, rocks a little with his thighs quivering from the strain, then stills with a ragged noise as he feels what that does to his nipples. Hubert makes a satisfied hum into her cunt and does something with his tongue that makes her voice break, makes her arch with a moan. “Yes, _yes_ , Hubert—yes—”

She grinds hard, chasing her orgasm, tension rattling through her—breaking, finally, in a welcome wave and a wail of relief. Hubert, perfect Hubert, backs off the exact amount she needs, then keeps going at a single tug of his forelock. She wants at _least_ another to take the edge off before she can even pretend to be dignified in the face of _this._

Dimitri, making unearthly noises, slowly gathers himself enough to sink a fraction of an inch. It’s tentative, like he’s struggling to move at all, despite the obvious strain in his thighs and balls. Until something gives and he slides an inch down, makes some vague whine as he catches himself. Lifts, just a little, and even for his steel-honed legs, that looks difficult. Edelgard can’t take her eyes off him, even as she fists Hubert’s hair hard enough to make him groan, which feels delicious against her clit, so she does it again.

Hubert’s not yet comfortable being vulnerable in front of Dimitri. That— _only_ that—keeps her from ripping his clothes off, finding some way to hurt him beautifully so she can feel his cries in her cunt as she comes.

Dimitri rides, one slow, excruciating flex of his thighs as he eases down a touch, backing off, and it wrings a pleading whine from his open mouth, and Edelgard’s second orgasm hits her like sunlight along with the realization that she really has been dancing around something, hasn’t she?

She tugs the back of Hubert’s collar—his shirt-collar, right, he’s still fully dressed—and he lifts his head obediently, easing off. His mouth is soaked, a mess down his chin, dark spots nearly lost in the black of his clothing. His eyes are heated; his hands, she realizes belatedly, have been clasped behind his back ever since he sorted out her hose.

“You’ll laugh at me if I just now admit I’m a sadist, won’t you?” she says in a rush. Barely more than a whisper—she’s not sure Dimitri can hear over his own ceaseless moans, his labored breathing as he works out how to ride that thing, working himself closer to being able to just _sit_ and rest his legs.

“No,” Hubert says, equally low and unusually fierce. “I know you, Your Majesty. Lady Edelgard.” Her name from his lips makes her chest wrench—it’s so rare these days, in the moments of greatest intimacy, that he reverts to using anything other than the title he’d been so desperate for her to win. “You take great pride in being somebody who respects your submissives. You rule with care and dedication, and refuse to make selfish use of those who are yours. You would never have won either of us if you didn’t. And so you are ever cautious about your darker desires.” He lowers his head to kiss her, reverent amongst white curls.

“Hubert,” she murmurs, voice snarled in her throat, and reaches under his shirt to press her hand against his collar, reverent in return.

“But,” he says, eyes heating. “You told him to look upon you. Look upon him in return. His gaze, his arousal. Have no worry about whether that side of you is welcome. For here, with us, conquest and cruelty will bring us joy.” A flash of a sharp-edged smile. “And did you really believe that I would take charity from you without knowing that it also serves your nature, even if you’d not yet admitted it?”

Edelgard feels frozen in place, dragging deep and shaky breaths, staring wide-eyed down at Hubert, who looks back up at her with all his usual irony stripped away. Only wildfire in him now. Then up at Dimitri, helpless, suffering in abject bliss, only able to hang his tongue out and wail as he fights a losing battle with gravity, inch by inexorable inch.

She draws one more breath, hissing between her teeth, and pulls Hubert up by his hair so she can slap him. Hard. The ringing smack makes Dimitri jolt with a little noise of surprise. Hubert himself gives a small but heedless moan of sheer pleasure.

“You,” she says, and does the other cheek with her other hand, just for symmetry, “are perfect, my Hubert.” She lifts a foot—she’s still in her boots, she’s still mostly dressed, this is ridiculous—and grinds her heel into his shoulder, bearing him down. “Kiss me.”

He folds down to kiss her toe with a sigh of relief, and for a moment she’s content to just keep her boot on his back, soak in the heat of his face through her shoe-leather along with Dimitri’s moans.

“Do you have more plans for Dimitri?” she asks Hubert, not letting him up yet.

“Only to let him sit on his own time,” he says into her boot.

“Oh, of course,” she murmurs. “I’m not exactly going to let him up early.”

“My point has been made. I leave him at your disposal, Your Majesty, as he is meant to be.”

“Thank you for your service, Hubert,” she says, and punctuates that with a gentle grind of her boot-heel on his head. He melts in satisfaction. She lifts her foot off his head with care, then stands, feet framing him. “I’m going to survey your work more closely. Get my silk robe ready for me when I’m done.”

“Your Majesty,” Hubert all but purrs, and takes a moment to enjoy himself, slapped and trampled and prostrate.

Edelgard leaves him in her wake as she comes up to Dimitri, circling him theatrically, enjoying his trembling form from every angle. “You really are lovely like this,” she murmurs, just to see him whine and flush. “And still so much to go,” she adds, once she gets a good look at the dildo. “You haven’t even started the real stretch yet.” Which is pretty close to a lie—the growth is fairly gradual, and he’s making good progress—but the almost-sob it gets her is beautiful. So are the wet, needy noises as she finishes her circuit and reaches up to play with his mouth, probing and insistent, pinching his tongue and shoving her fingers as deep as she can before he gags. And a little more for fun.

In the corner of her eye, Hubert moves, ghost-silent, off to fish out her favorite silk lounging-robe. And in the meantime, with leisurely glee, she plays with Dimitri like he’s an oversized toy, and he thrills under her hands. Choking him on her fingers. Pulling the nipple clamps. Dragging nails across his chest between the chains, down his shaking thighs. Smacking his ass and hearing him almost hiccup in half-sobs as he tries not to clench in reflex and lose his hard-earned stretch. The lightest of taps to his bound balls, making his whole body rock. Pressing his cock down with one finger just to watch it bounce back up.

“Oh, you’re desperate,” she murmurs, and smacks his flank to see if she can make his cock twitch. There’s a hint of fluid at the tip, and she gives into the urge to lean down and lick it off—it’s not nearly as unpleasant as actual come, in her experience, and his is less bitter than Hubert’s—and he gives a particularly keening whine and shiver.

“Poor thing,” she teases, running a fingertip around the head. “I do want to see you come like this. Helpless and screaming around that thing. Once you’ve finished sitting down, I think.” Another little smack to his balls. “I’m going to make you come whether you want to or not.” He makes wretched noises, needy and frightened in one, and she pats his cheek ungently. “Don’t worry, I’m sure I can find another use for you afterwards.”

Dimitri quiets a little at that, still in his chains, panting fast and shallow as drool slides down his chin. There’s relief plain on his face.

“Hubert,” she calls. “Help me get changed. I have a show to watch, after all.”

“Your Majesty,” he says, arms full of red silk, practically vibrating with satisfaction.

* * *

By the time Hubert has finished painstakingly undoing her day dress and all her underpinnings—some already askew and soaked—so that she can slide into the cloud-soft silk of her robe, Dimitri has fallen back into his deep, helpless daze. Occasionally those thighs flex as he gathers some fraction of strength and rides his foe, painstakingly working it in and out to ease his way. But more often than not, he just lists, sinking slowly.

Hubert adds more oil, and Edelgard rakes nails over his ass until it’s red and striped all over, and at that point he’s nearing the bottom, the greatest stretch he’s ever taken. It’s making him groan like thunder, wide-eyed. She circles to watch his face, nice and close, barely even touching him and giving him no solace except filthy nothings about how perfect he looks when he’s getting fucked.

Finally, inexorably, with a long wailing moan, he sits. Sags limp in the chains, panting, no care for how hard he’s pulling on his nipples. Probably stunned by how full he is. Edelgard runs hands over him, gropes him as low on his ass as she can, smacks his aching thighs. “There you go,” she purrs. It’s easier to reach his face by now, and she nips his lips and tongue, then shoves as many fingers through the ring as she can, deep in his mouth. “Are you full enough? So full you can barely breathe?”

He makes a vague, nerveless grunt that she can only assume is a yes.

“My Dimitri.” She clutches his collar with her other hand, gives him a little possessive shake. Then pries her hands away so she can drop to one knee. “Hold on as long as you can,” she says, forceful, and wraps her wet hand round the base of his cock. “Hubert, enjoy him as you wish, and rip those clamps off when he comes.”

“Your Majesty,” Hubert says, an edge of sadistic delight in his voice, even as she leans forward and wraps her lips around the bare head of Dimitri’s dick.

He cries out almost immediately. Wild, pleading, knees jerking back and forth like he’s trying to hold on, trying to close his legs, probably regretting moving them at all with that huge toy buried in his ass. Black fabric falls against her silk-clad side: Hubert’s leaning in, no doubt drinking in every twitch across Dimitri’s face as he battles his orgasm. She hears Dimitri gag a few times, make strangely warped and muffled noises, and doesn’t doubt Hubert is doing something deliciously unpleasant to his mouth.

Even just the head of Dimitri’s cock is big in her own mouth. She doesn’t bother trying to work him deeper—that’s the sensitive part anyway—and strokes the shaft with her wet hand instead, fast and hard to make him moan. She’s swift, merciless, rolling her lips over the tender spot just over the head, teasing the slit with her tongue. The strip of fabric holding his balls is mostly slack now, and she fidgets under the chair to untie it entirely, releasing the pull and toying with his bound sack. It’ll be harder for him to come like this. But more intense when he does, no doubt.

He fights gamely.

He barely lasts.

The first pulse hits her tongue, and she pulls back at the bitter taste, and then Hubert strikes like lightning, yanking off both the clamps as Dimitri howls and finishes coming, long and loud and spasming in his bonds like a man possessed. The rest of it hits Edelgard’s face as she works him through it with her hand, looking up at the whole helpless length of his body with greedy triumph. She barely notices it.

Dimitri goes limp, gasping, the occasional twitch as the aftershocks roll through him.

“Your Majesty,” Hubert murmurs, and wipes at her cheek with his handkerchief.

“Thank you, Hubert,” she says, and straightens, and before he can finish wiping her face, she grabs the front of his shirt and drags him down for a kiss.

Hubert, after all, enjoys bitter things. Not that Dimitri’s tastes as bad as his own, but that isn’t saying much. Hubert, perfect Hubert, licks Dimitri’s come out of her mouth with devastating thoroughness. Then finishes cleaning her face with his handkerchief. There’s that oh-so-rare faint blush high on his cheeks, and Dimitri, when she looks down at him to grab his collar, looks straight-up stunned, staring at Hubert in wide-eyed disbelief.

“Her Majesty,” Hubert says, “dislikes bitter things. And I serve her in all ways.”

With that, he stuffs the come-stained handkerchief into Dimitri’s mouth.

Dimitri croaks, muffled and burning with humiliation, and squeezes his eye shut, and Edelgard rides a rush of arousal. She cradles his head to kiss one cheek, pat the other. “Now,” she says fondly into his ear. “Was that a pleasant round of discipline, my Dimitri?”

He makes a soft, wrecked noise, and nods.

“Good boy,” she says, kissing him again, and he melts, held up only by the chair and her arms. Hubert, she notices, has unhooked the chain from his chest to the ceiling, though the one around his waist is still in place, keeping him from standing fully. “Do you need to stop now?”

He shakes his head almost immediately. Not ready to come up, even if he’s come. Well, she’d said she’d find another use for him, hadn’t she? She reaches down to squeeze his ass. “Do you need this out?”

Another headshake. He has just gotten it in, after all.

“Mm, you like being full, don’t you?”

A slow nod, face burning.

“Hubert, fetch me some rope. One hank will do.”

“Your Majesty,” Hubert murmurs, and goes to the closet again. Edelgard takes the time to wrap around Dimitri and suck a mark onto his shoulder. When Hubert comes back, she takes the rope and shakes it out, keeping it ready in one hand.

“Unbind him completely,” she tells Hubert. “Arms first.”

Hubert nods, casting the releasing spell with ease, and taking the far less showy route of simply releasing the magic and unwinding the chain from his body. Edelgard helps, lets it fall clattering to the carpet, and steadies Dimitri as his arms slide down to his sides and he slumps further, groaning as he moves around his dildo. The chain around his waist comes next, and then his ankles, and he slowly pulls his legs in, wiggling and stretching.

Edelgard replaces the chain with a loop of rope around his waist, scooting it around so the length dangles in the back. “You,” she tells Dimitri, bracing an arm around his chest, “are going to slide forward, onto your hands and knees.” He nods, shaky, rolling his shoulders and rotating his arms. “Hubert, keep that in him, though do make sure he’s not bleeding.”

They move. Dimitri slides out of the chair with a groan, and trembles a little as he holds position—his shoulders are probably stiff. She follows him down and ties the dildo into him after Hubert confirms he’s unharmed, enjoying the groans every time she nudges the base, and framing his softening cock with rope. That should make things particularly nice if he hardens again. She’s gotten a second round out of him a few times by now, and he hasn’t tapped out after coming, so she’s optimistic.

“Don’t drop what Her Majesty has given you,” Hubert says, and Edelgard blinks over to see him picking up his handkerchief to stuff back in. Dimitri bows his head, sheepish, unable to even bite down, and she holds him fondly by the back of the collar.

“Hubert, where did my smalls get to? Let’s make sure the rest of him is filled up as well, shall we?”

Hubert catches her drift with a spark in his eye, and paces off to rummage through the tidy pile of laundry he accumulated while undressing her.

Edelgard takes pity on the tremors running through Dimitri’s arms and shoves down on the back of his neck. “Prostrate on your knees. Let your arms rest at your sides or under you, whichever is more comfortable.” He obeys, groaning, fidgeting until he settles with his arms curled under him. “Mm, that makes you feel even fuller, doesn’t it?” She tests the tension of the rope—it would be easy for him to lose the dildo like this, but it’s holding snug—and spanks him lazily until Hubert comes back.

Hubert returns, and with his meticulous attention to detail, smears the still-damp seat of her underwear under Dimitri’s nose before wadding it up and stuffing it in along with his handkerchief, packing Dimitri’s mouth full. His next moan as she spanks him is muffled, almost tiny, and she ruffles his hair. “You’ve made all sorts of delicious noises for us. Now it’s time to be quiet.”

He sags at that, nodding. Stays sagged even as she spanks him again, a little muffled sigh, like he’s sinking to some deep place where even pain is peaceful.

“Can you bear my weight right now?” she asks, squeezing a big handful of his hair as he basks in it. He nods without hesitation, so she flicks her robe aside and settles, bare-bottomed on his warm skin, folding her legs to one side as he’s a rather low footstool at the moment. Ass within spanking range on her right, hair and collar to pull on her left. It’s really quite convenient. “If this becomes uncomfortable,” she tells him, “you can shift between hands and knees or elbows and knees as you need. If you choke, you can pull out as much of the cloth as you need. Other than that, you’ll be my seat for a while, so keep still and don’t toss me off.”

He nods, a soft noise of assent. He’s been her footstool before, but not yet a seat. It had been very nice for him, from what he said. A peaceful state where he didn’t need to think, only exist. Of course now, her blood is still roused, so he may be an ill-used seat. He shall simply have to manage. “Hubert,” she says, looking up at him as he thoughtfully moves the chair aside. “Give me another. Your hand this time.

“Your Majesty,” he says, fervent, and kneels, sliding his hand between her legs as she unfolds them. His other settles around her waist, helping her keep her balance so she can keep both hands free. Sometimes they’re for him, pulling his hair and clutching his throat and holding him in deep demanding kisses as he fingers her expertly. Sometimes she makes things difficult for her stool, spanking him as he twitches around his dildo.

She comes hard with one collar in each hand, smearing a layer of fresh heat on Dimitri’s back, and wraps one leg around Hubert as she catches her breath. “Dear Hubert,” she says in his ear. “Do you mind the furniture hearing you come?”

“I always make a point of assuming my furniture has ears,” Hubert says with a quirk of a smile.

“Do you mind the furniture hearing you scream?”

“As long as it keeps its eye downcast.” Dimitri makes a vague noise of assent, and Edelgard holds the back of his collar, steadying him. The _it_ is new. He doesn’t so much as twitch. “I believe it already has,” Hubert points out. “Unless it managed to sleep through some previous diversions.”

Edelgard laughs softly. “I think he might have, actually. I do tend to wear him out.” She toys with one of Hubert’s ears, running her nail along the shell. “Tell me, Hubert, as you have an encyclopedic knowledge of ways to hurt the human body—oh, perhaps I simply didn’t believe myself to be a sadist because I was comparing myself to you.”

“Perhaps,” he says, not unfondly. “Remember only that I stand at the extreme of any standard.”

“And you’re proud of it,” she says, kissing his temple impulsively, and he makes an almost startled noise, and for a moment she remembers he is but two years her senior and not some monolith who has chosen to bow to her. “Tell me of something intensely painful that can be done quickly, efficiently, with most of your clothing still in place, and that could lead into your orgasm. Ideally, perhaps, something that could be left to work upon you for a little while.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, calculating, then says, “Concentrated hot pepper oil applied to the scrotum.” Edelgard feels her eyes widening as Hubert continues. “You will need a neutral oil to remove it afterwards or in case you apply too much, as water will not do, and you would be best off wearing gloves so that you need not trouble yourself much in cleaning.”

“Do you—have that?” Edelgard blurts. “On hand?”

“I keep a poisoner’s kit in my drawers here. I believe that’s among the ingredients, as well as the oil I use as a solvent.”

“How much? And can I leave it to work upon you?”

“A light coating is all that is needed. And it’s quite well suited to that application. It could torment me for some time if you so wish.”

Edelgard flattens a hand over his chest, caught up in something like wonder. Watching Hubert torment Dimitri had been one thing. But this—it feels as if she’s opened some little corner of Hubert’s mind, of Hubert’s desires, that she hadn’t quite reached before. Some corner, perhaps, of his respect.

He lifts a hand unbidden to touch her cheek, tender, and the backs of his fingers feel almost scaly. Autumn is difficult on his hands, she knows. She holds tight to Dimitri’s collar and vibrates head to toe with emotion.

“If I dare say so, Your Majesty,” Hubert murmurs. “You are truly coming into your power.”

She lifts her chin, feeling like a clear bright light is spreading over her skull, splendid and peaceful as the open sky. Feels a smile tug at her lips. “You may say so, dear Hubert. Now fetch me the oils and gloves. And…mm, a paddle.” She reaches down to grope Dimitri’s ass. “The heavy leather one, I think.”

He tilts his head. “The broad flat one, or…”

“The weighted one that you hate and I know you that shoved in the very bottom of the closet. I think he might like it. He enjoys heavier impacts.”

Dimitri makes a muzzy noise, thoroughly muffled, and doesn’t move.

“There’s a world of difference between that and a heavy flogger,” Hubert says, smiling deviously, because she does know that, and he knows that she knows that, but menacing Dimitri is still a priority.

“Oh, yes.” She takes her cue, gives Dimitri’s ass a hearty smack. “But I want to actually hurt him this time.”

* * *

The evening blurs like the world from wyvernback as Edelgard rides a high like she’s never felt before, burning red and wild in her blood.

The slow hiss between Hubert’s teeth as she spreads a thin slick of oil over his balls, a little clumsy in the borrowed pair of oilproof gloves from his poisoner’s kit.

The stifled, stunned grunt Dimitri makes when the weighted paddle hits, sending a ripple even through his iron-hewn ass.

Sweat beading on Hubert’s forehead, the flush building on his face, the tiny whines behind his teeth as he kneels there in rigidly perfect posture, hands behind his back, fighting desperately to not let his composure crack as his balls burn red. As she lavishes him with praise just because it makes him flinch, as she sometimes reaches out to drag the edge of his fly along his hypersensitized skin and nearly make him scream.

Deep red marks rising on Dimitri’s ass, his whole body shaking under her as he holds her weight, because there’s no reason she can’t just straddle him as she hits him, hard enough to make him roar even through the layers of cloth stuck in his mouth. Hard enough that he’s making pleading moans like aftershocks after every stroke, and one foot kicks the carpet once, even twice as she pushes his limits, but never thrice. Never tapping out.

Hubert shaking apart, head falling back, face crumpled, pleading, agonized, exultant, as she jerks him off, careful not to touch the oil, and the light catches a glint at the corner of his eyes, a shine of wet—not falling, never falling, he never cries, but oh can he come close. Wiping the oil safely off as Dimitri waits, a silent pain-drunk seat, clutching him for a lip-biting kiss, telling Hubert that he’s perfect and shoving his face in the carpet—

—sometimes after intense pain, he likes five or ten minutes of forced idleness before he can even accept being cared for, likes enjoying those brief periods when his ever-busy brain is cudgeled into silence and he can be a small and meaningless thing on the carpet, and she’s spoken with him about it before, and it’s barely even a conscious thought, she just _knows_ , she just shoves him down by the collar and lets him huddle fetal and melt with sheer relief.

Dimitri’s hard again, and she’s still soaring, a raw demanding nerve of a girl, so she rolls him over and climbs on without even letting go of Hubert’s collar, just presses down on her bony black bundle as she starts to ride her former stool, extra firm and needy from the rope around the base of his cock. All those bruises and that aching stuffed ass pressed into the carpet, and she pulls cloth and ring out of his mouth so that she can savor every little moan he makes as she bears down greedily.

Dimitri lasts a long time. Long enough that Hubert rises, goes to clean himself and change into sleeping clothes, and she orders him down so they can cling to each other even as she rides Dimitri, orders his hand on her clit so she can really enjoy this, and between his clever cold fingers and Dimitri’s cock—it’s almost too much, it’s screaming overstimulation, she practically levitates off his cock at least once, except the fullness is letting her chase something elusive and terrifyingly huge—Dimitri’s arms come up around her at some point, she’s framed between them, skin-hot, barely touching the ground, until it bursts through her, more convulsion than orgasm, and leaves her empty-headed in bliss.

Dimitri comes again, somewhere between them—her hand, his, Hubert’s, she isn’t quite sure.

Like all flights, it ends eventually, but the three of them are still there, small on the floor, their collars under her hands, and Edelgard stares at a strange dark spot for a while until she realizes it’s the branks. Still lying on the carpet where she’d dropped them. What feels like hours ago, maybe days.

“Well,” she says into the sweaty mess of his hair. “I should hope you’re not going to try running away again.”

“No,” he says, thick-tongued, and buries his face in her. His bare arms are a tangle with Hubert’s, thin in his soft black sleeping shirt. “Not ever, El.”

* * *

They pick themselves up off the floor eventually. Edelgard can tell that no matter their messiness, they’re not going to manage a proper bath; she’s bone-tired and Dimitri is probably more so. Only Hubert has a smidgen of energy, but even he has a particular sort of boneless comfort that she doesn’t see in him often. Well, the sheets can be changed tomorrow.

Dimitri is a limp puddle in Edelgard’s lap for a long time after she works out the dildo, rubs his jaw and checks his ass and gets him water and cookies and a blanket. They’re sprawled on the bed; she puts Hubert on his knees on the floor to let him settle for a few minutes as she pulls his hair, and checks that he’s satisfied for the evening, and eventually he crawls up too, even allowing some bit of his lanky bundle of limbs to touch the blanket-blister.

“I…can’t taste,” is the first thing Dimitri says, slow and muzzy, lifting his head to worry like he does. “I could. Smell it though. A little.”

Edelgard blinks, genuinely taken aback, and traces his lips with her fingers. “You couldn’t taste us through the cloth, you mean? Or…”

“Anything.”

She moves her hand to stroke his hair, calming him. “I…didn’t realize. Well, that’s hardly your fault. And it did still seem to have an effect.”

“I-it…yes.” A faint flush. “It did.”

Hubert’s raised his head too, brow furrowing. “Why? There’s no visible damage to your mouth or tongue. Is it some inborn condition?”

“No. After…after Duscur. Everything tasted like ash. It never stopped.”

“So it’s a matter of perception, then.” Hubert apparently can’t resist the urge to touch his mouth either, nudging his jaw open to peer inside even though he’s surely gotten a good view earlier. Dimitri allows it, pliant. Then, in turn, moves a hand to touch Hubert’s. Barely more than a nudge, like he can’t resist the urge to study his fingers in turn.

Hubert pulls his hand back.

“My apologies,” Dimitri murmurs.

Hubert looks away, expression closing, and Edelgard can feel a snarl of tension in him. “His concern,” she says, “can be really quite alarming at times. I know.”

“Alarming and presumptive,” Hubert says dryly.

For a moment, Edelgard’s worried Dimitri will trip up on guilt, but he only lays his head back down, relaxed. “How dare I,” he says, a soft smile on his lips.

“How very dare,” Edelgard says, and tweaks his nose.

Hubert takes in a long, careful breath. Lets it out even more slowly. Studies the both of them like they’re a ten-page report.

“It’s a side effect of frequently using dark magic from a young age,” he offers eventually. “There’s no risk to my health.”

They do pain him at times, Edelgard knows. But of course he would leave that out. Any of them would.

Dimitri doesn’t quite lift his head, but his eye opens. “Thank you.” Faint surprise in his voice.

“Dimitri,” Edelgard says fondly, ruffling his hair. “Did you appreciate the discipline Hubert gave you?”

She can feel him shiver in her lap. From the look on his face, it’s one of delight. “Yes,” he admits, a little strained. “Goddess, yes. That was…” He swallows, and does lift his head this time, turning so he can look up at where Hubert’s propped himself up on his elbows. “Thank you.”

Hubert presses his lips together, expression going on some complicated and subtle journey, before he says, “It was my pleasure to serve and entertain Her Majesty. And,” he adds, before Edelgard can needle him for more. “You are particularly enjoyable to torment.”

“Dimitri,” Edelgard says thoughtfully. “Once you’re ready to move a little, why don’t you get some lotion for Hubert’s hands? As a token of thanks before we all sleep. They do get rather dry when the season changes.”

“Yes, El,” Dimitri says, soft and fond. Hubert gives her a frankly wounded expression. Oh, she really will have to make this up to him later, thank him thoroughly with all his favorite things. _Their_ favorite things.

“I believe his abject suffering was a sufficient and appropriate expression of gratitude,” Hubert says, doleful.

“I know,” Edelgard says, ruffling his hair, and pulls him in to kiss his temple.


	6. Hope

**VI — HOPE**

Dimitri comes to Edelgard’s chambers every night for weeks.

Sometimes to play—with or without Hubert, who is still holding his distance in certain ways. Sometimes to just serve her tea on his knees and be held, or be the tea-table. Sometimes because he’s jittery and needs to be flogged or paddled until he’s limp and moaning. Sometimes, she’s come to realize, because he’s melancholy and just wants to press himself against her legs and not be alone. Sometimes late, especially for him as the winter nights shorten, just to sleep. A few times she’s come in and found him already fast asleep in his cage.

He doesn’t always stay to morning, and when he does, he rises at dawn and slips out quietly. They both wake screaming as many nights as not, after all, and he doesn’t tend to go back to bed afterwards. She’s fairly certain, not that he’ll admit it, that she’s set him off a few times. He’s set her off once, his rants and low wails echoing down the prison hallway of her nightmares. The cage gets a sizable dent on one side from his thrashing. The palace blacksmith hammers it out. Dimitri still sleeps inside.

Hubert says, quiet in the late night, as she kneads his hair into a mess while fussing gently about who she is as a dominant, that he’d naturally come to it all from a different direction. That he hadn’t even been sure for years whether he’d actually enjoyed what his family had trained him to do or whether he’d simply pretended to because the alternative would have destroyed him. But that it was different to cause pain in her service than in his father’s. And then a relief, a revelation, to be able to cause delight through pain, because for all that cruelty lies at the root of his soul—far more than it does hers—it’s quite a different matter when it’s done for pleasure.

She’s left possessed with the warring urges to tenderly make love to him and take him completely apart. Fortunately, since he’s Hubert, those are one and the same.

She remains relatively gentle with Dimitri, given how he is and how they are, but with Hubert—oh, she had much to learn. A door has opened between them. Once, as she’s busy making Hubert scream and shake like a leaf, Dimitri blunders in for the evening, and she throws the nearest implement at him on impulse and snaps at him to wait outside prostrate with that in his mouth. She finds him later still perfectly in position, trembling a little from being left so long, with a very wet paddle clutched in his teeth and Lady Celestine a demure cat-loaf on his back.

At least one time, she makes Hubert cry, an actual tear spilling onto his gaunt cheekbone and the smeared remains of his powder, though she may have cheated and combined agony with earnestly telling him how much she adores his most carefully guarded endearing traits.

And the lost prince of Faerghus who’d once slavered for her head sleeps peacefully in the cage at the foot of her bed. Trains on the eastern roof with a few brave members of Hubert’s guard. Works for hours on intelligence analysis, looking for ins against the Agarthans, tracking down the scattered corrupt cardinals of the Church. It’s a beautiful illusion. Almost like this is a normal life.

Then one night Dimitri doesn’t come.

Hubert’s whisper-chain confirms he’s alive, pacing his room, and she herself paces a little before she can wrap herself around Hubert, give him a row of bite-marks down his neck and shoulders, and calm down enough to sleep. It feels foolish. He’s had lapses before. He might simply be caught up with his intelligence work. His mind will never be entirely stable. She understands.

He doesn’t come the next night either. He’s rambling again, they say, and refusing company, though he doesn’t seem angry. The doctor thinks he’s working through something. Through the door, through his speaking tube, he refuses her. Politely. With apologies. “I…want to talk. Soon. Just let me be sure of this.”

Finally, the next evening, after a _very_ long day doing budgets with the city wardens of Enbarr while trying to ascertain how much they knew of the actual state of the city, she sees the mage robe folded neatly on the chair in her office. Something eases in her belly—

The bedroom is empty.

“I’m, ah, in the sitting room,” Dimitri calls. Hubert is still standing rather awkwardly in the office, just opening his mouth to point it out. Edelgard lifts her chin like she _absolutely_ meant to do that and goes to her little parlor. It’s about two levels less formal than any imperial parlor should be, simply a love-seat and two armchairs arrayed around a tea-table, which is to say it is exactly what Edelgard wants, for all that she doesn’t get much use of it.

Dimitri studies her as she walks in, calm. There’s something quietly determined in his face that she hasn’t seen before, and he’s still dressed, albeit just in loose trousers and undershirt. He’s cross-legged on the love-seat—the right side, as the left is prickly with black fuzz, given that it’s been Lady Celestine’s favorite roost for years. She’s almost shocked to see his feet on the furniture, but clearly it’s to accommodate the lady of the room herself, who’s curled in his warm lap, so deep asleep that she’s snorting. One of his big hands is resting feather-light on her head.

Hubert takes her cape.

“Dimitri,” Edelgard says. “Are you all right?”

He blinks, eye widening. “Yes,” he says, like he’s surprised she asked. “I just…something came upon me which I could not ignore.”

She nods, surveying him. Something in the pit of her stomach is desperately relieved to have him back here. He should be naked, she thinks; he should be on his knees. She sets it carefully aside. He’s positioned himself deliberately: to speak as intimates but relative equals. And in her sitting room, so that he need not break the rules of the bedroom. Besides, that would dislodge the small lady.

“I’d like to kiss you,” she says instead. “And have some tea first, as this seems serious.” She holds up a hand. “Hubert can serve. Let the lady sleep.”

“Yes,” he says, eye widening even more. Almost startled. “Of course. Please. I’d thought to make some, but I didn’t know when you’d be back, and, well.” He gestures a little helplessly at the cat.

“Be careful how you say please to me,” Edelgard says, leaning over to take his face in her hands. “It makes it difficult not to rip your clothes off.”

He takes a shaky breath, face heating, and lifts a hand to touch the back of hers, light and warm. “I care not for them. But think of the seamstresses.”

“They’re paid well enough,” she says comfortably, and kisses that ridiculous mouth, deep and demanding. He opens for her willingly.

“Are you aware that she has missed you?” Hubert says dryly, just as Dimitri is far too deep in the kiss to speak. He makes another startled noise, quivers, and flattens one big scarred hand around her waist.

By the time they break apart, Hubert has a pot of water heating out in the office, and Dimitri looks up at her with surprise and worry. “El. I didn’t realize…”

She slides a hand down and tugs his collar, rocking him a little and making his face go a little slack. “Do you think this means so little to me?”

He heaves a deep breath like she’s punched him. His gaze softens and he bows his head. “I’m sorry—”

“Sshhh.” She brushes a finger over his lips. “Just…understand, if you can, that this would not have happened if you did not mean quite a bit to me.”

He wrestles with himself, briefly, then bows forward until he can rest the crown of his head on her chest. “Thank you.”

Lady Celestine, a little overshadowed, yawns and mrrps, and Edelgard crouches to coo her greetings, giving her a kiss and the gentle scritch under the chin she so adores. “She’s gotten quite comfortable with you,” she observes, rubbing one ear and dislodging a growing purr.

“It’s an honor,” Dimitri says, and touches Celestine’s other ear, profoundly hesitant, with just a fingertip. She flicks it, disgruntled.

“Gently but with confidence, Dimitri,” Edelgard says, teasing.

“I—dare not.” Dimitri retracts the offending finger, settles for framing Celestine’s back, barely touching. “She’s so delicate.”

“Well,” says Edelgard, pressing the ear-rub until Celestine’s back paw thumps against Dimitri’s leg and she’s soon to be overstimulated. “I do appreciate your care with her.” She straightens, kissing Dimitri’s cheek in passing, because she hears Hubert coming in with the tea-tray. Bergamot wafts. “Would you like some?”

“No, thank you. I’ve had rather too much these past few days.”

Edelgard nods and settles in an armchair as Hubert sets things out, quick and unfussy. He’s brought himself a cup of coffee, she notices. “Should I leave you to it?” he asks, eyeing Dimitri.

Dimitri shakes his head. “This will concern you too. As you are my keeper.”

Hubert sips his coffee with a dour expression, as if those words alone had driven him to another cup even though he’d clearly already prepared the grounds. “The answer is no,” he says, without particular bite.

“I have not yet even asked,” Dimitri says pleasantly. “How can you give an answer without having all the necessary intelligence?”

“Gentlemen,” Edelgard says, quite fond, and puts an edge of danger into her voice. “If you wish to spar, I shall have it be in my service.”

“He is clearly wanting in discipline,” Hubert says, a gallows twinkle in his eye.

“And I shall submit myself to whatever punishment you deem fit for troubling Her Majesty,” Dimitri says, almost smoothly, even as his face heats.

“Be careful what you offer,” Hubert says over his coffee. “There is no greater offense you could commit against me, and I shall have to respond accordingly.”

“Later, dear Hubert,” Edelgard says, giving her teaspoon a few more turns to make sure all the sugar’s dissolved. “I’m curious, Dimitri—did you wait here because Lady Celestine commanded it, or because you wished to make a point?”

“The latter.” He seems almost embarrassed to admit it. “I— _am_ your submissive. I beg you to not let that change. But I must speak to you also as a man. As…” He pauses, searching. “As Dimitri Blaiddyd.”

Edelgard goes very still. Something clenches in her belly. Uncertainty. Perhaps relief. She sips tea to soothe it. “I thought Dimitri Blaiddyd was dead.”

“So did I. But…but there is one thing he wanted. I wanted. That I cannot let go of. Do you.” He pauses for a moment, brow furrowing. “Do you ever have those moments when you just realize something, full and plain? That’s been there, staring you in the face, like it’s obvious, but suddenly the weight of it hits you, after you have spent so long trying to avoid it?”

“It’s…been known to happen.” Edelgard takes a long sip of her tea. “Such as with a certain dagger, for example.” He’s dancing around it. She can already see the path his big shuffling feet are seeking, and it makes her quaver with nerves, but she lets him work up to it—for Hubert’s sake, mostly. Perhaps for Dimitri’s as well.

He smiles, small and wry. “Of course.” And takes a deep breath. “This—all of this, everything you have offered me and I have accepted, with profound gratitude. It’s fundamentally selfish. This comfortable cage of yours…my mind feels lighter than it has in years. Perhaps ever.”

“You’re getting your needs met,” Edelgard observes. “Food, sleep, companionship, submission. I wouldn’t call that selfish. Simply necessary.”

“It’s more than mere needs,” he murmurs. Then he shakes his head, small. “But choosing to live just for comfort…that feels selfish. To me, at least. I wouldn’t begrudge somebody else who lived that way, but…but I.” He sighs. “My existence needs a justification, at least to myself.” And pauses. “Saints, that sounds absurd when I say it out loud.”

Edelgard barely manages to swallow her tea. She might regret letting him work up to it if he’s going to say things like _that_. She’s not doing anything merely to justify her own existence. She’s—stronger than that. It’s not as if she hasn’t felt that wretched guilt, the bewilderment—eight, eight children, dead slow and terrible, her own ribs split open, her beating heart bare in the cloudy steel mirror of the ceiling, her life is—

“Does this have anything to do with a certain lieutenant returning to duty?” Hubert asks, an unpleasant edge in his voice.

Dimitri flinches and bows his head. Edelgard looks to Hubert, puzzled, grateful, and forces her attention on them. Only on them. Those things don’t affect her. She won’t allow it.

“In…part, perhaps,” Dimitri says. “Seeing him made it impossible to keep hiding from the truth.”

“The man whose face he bit off,” Hubert murmurs to her. “Healing it was a challenge, but Linhardt stepped up admirably.”

“I do not deserve to be alive,” Dimitri finishes, quiet, like it’s obvious. “For. So many reasons.”

Hubert’s jaw tightens, and Edelgard reaches out her hand palm-down, holding him back. “If I executed you for the crime of surviving,” she says, blood cold, voice level through sheer force of will, “I would have to put my own head on the block in turn. And you may not be wrong when you said I’m a hypocrite, but do consider whether you are as well.”

Dimitri takes that with a faint grunt, closing his eye for a moment. “Perhaps I am,” he murmurs. “I think I have…accepted my existence. As best as I can. My death would not erase the atrocities I’ve wrought. Nor would it restore my family, or Duscur. The only thing it would do…” He touches his collar. “I don’t know if I could have accepted it without you, El. The example you set. The strength with which you carry forward.”

Hubert’s hand is white-knuckled on his coffee cup. Edelgard swallows hard, heart pounding, and some part of her wants to clutch those words to her chest like a talisman. It’s foolish. She can’t possibly have doubted herself so much as to want a little gem of admiration like that. “Then what is the thing you cannot let go of, Dimitri Blaiddyd? You shall have your revenge. You must know that much for sure.”

“Yes. I’m still not sure whether revenge is selfish. In the end, it is more death. And I want it, I do.” He meets her gaze, the same searing, simple openness she remembers from the morning on the roof months before. “But what I need to do, whatever form it takes, is protect innocent life.”

Edelgard sets her teacup down on the saucer, stunned into a momentary silence. She’d halfway expected the request. Not the blinding idealism behind it. She’d thought that, of all things, was well and truly shattered.

Dimitri’s eye tracks a little to her left, and he adds, perfectly calm, “I will not strike her down, Hubert. That would not help anybody.”

The spell circle for the binding, she sees, is sitting on Hubert’s fingertips. “Why not?” he asks, eyes narrowed. “It is her war. Her choices that have sacrificed lives you would consider innocent.”

“And leave a headless state that Thales and his kind could fill?” Dimitri shakes his head. “No. That would make everything worse.”

“I do have contingencies for my death,” Edelgard says dryly. “I’m not a fool. But, Hubert,” she adds, more for his sake than anything else. “Bind his arms if you wish.”

Dimitri lets out a breath, unsurprised, and moves his own hands behind his back just before the circle flares and locks his wrists together with a loud clack. Lady Celestine flicks her ears back at the noise, mrows in annoyance, and decamps from his lap to settle on her side of the loveseat.

“Do you know what form it will take, then?” Edelgard asks. “This conviction of yours?”

“No,” Dimitri says easily. “So much depends on you.” His nod encompasses Hubert. “On how things develop, and what we learn, and what can even be changed at this point. But if there is the slightest chance of avoiding a war. If even one less person might die. I would take any position that would help Faerghus, at your control and to your ends.”

Edelgard feels her gut clench. “You said before that it would be best if you stayed dead to them. Better than knowing their prince is a traitor.”

He closes his eye, the barest flinch at the word, and bows his head. “Pride, in the end. But I cannot put pride before their lives. Least of all mine. In truth.” His voice roughens a little. “If it does come to this, I do not know how I could face Rodrigue. Felix, Sylvain, Ingrid. They would be right to strike me down where I stood. But I would face them. I’d have to.”

“No,” Edelgard says, bristling in frustration. “They would not. Because you’re mine. If you have accepted your existence, Dimitri, you have a right to fight for it.”

He stares at her, wide-eyed.

She takes a deep, careful breath, and gentles her voice. “Do you think there is even the slightest chance Faerghus will accept the reforms I seek without wholesale rebellion?”

“There is a better chance if it comes from me than if it comes at the edge of your axe. Unless their ranks and spirits are so broken that they have despaired of any freedom from tyranny. I may know your goals, your intentions, but those you conquer will not.”

“I am aware my intentions mean nothing,” Edelgard says quietly. “There is a reason I do not make a habit of explaining or apologizing. Only time can prove if my policies better Fódlan.” Faerghus has always been the heaviest campaign to plan for, has it not? Claude is dangerously unpredictable, yet plays for minimal losses; she’d be a fool to write off all the Alliance nobility as cowards, given Daphnel and Goneril, but many of them could give an easy surrender. But Faerghus will fight to the last man.

It’s—tempting, to avoid that. Inconceivable to contemplate, but tempting. Hubert will have questions about whether Dimitri could even be trusted with such a thing, she’s sure, but she doesn’t. Not a single doubt. _That_ sends a shiver down her spine, and she buries herself in her tea for a moment, feeling like the world is buckling under her ever-certain feet.

“Tell me,” she hedges. “Beyond whatever loyalty your name commands. Tell me what you know of Faerghus that makes you think there is even a chance.”

Dimitri’s quiet for a long moment, like he’s ordering his thoughts, then lifts his head.

“This is Faerghus, at least as I know her. The eastern lords pride themselves on their commitment to their people. When the Galatea lands suffered a poor harvest, their Count opened his stores to all, even when it meant going hungry himself. When the blizzards come, Rodrigue will rally his men and ride a circuit of the town, to make sure nobody is snowed in to starve or freeze. His wife used to go with him, and one year they were separated in the white. They found her three days later, frozen to death. And when the next storm struck, he rode again, so that no others would join her.”

Edelgard has to bite her lip hard. It’s madness to contemplate. Utterly foreign. No Adrestian noble would even _consider_ such things. She looks to Hubert, who’s narrowed-eyed and prickly and fast draining his coffee. Equally incredulous.

“That is the east,” Dimitri continues. “So I cannot help but have some faith that these lords might accept a chance to spare their people from the burden of another, even harsher war, even if it comes hand in hand with changes they will be uncertain of. Some of which I would have sought regardless. As for the west…I do not know those lords as well. I did not grow up with them. But at least some of them will die regardless. For their crimes in Duscur, even before their treachery is accounted for. If their people would rather rule themselves, as you so dream, I could hardly begrudge them that after they have been sold to Cornelia for their lords’ comfort and coin.”

Edelgard blinks. “I’ve spoken of elevating ministers by merit, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. Not of letting the people choose them of their own accord.”

“Yet how would you best find those ministers? There will be those who the people already look to for local leadership. Even if you assess and elevate them yourself, the result is still that the people are governed by one of their own. And if you seek to lift up the common folk of Fódlan, why not give them a voice?”

Edelgard resists the urge to press a hand over her heart—it seems as if it’s about to thump out of her chest. It’s almost embarrassing, really, to hear something so radical out of _his_ mouth. She’s almost tempted to put him and Ferdinand von Aegir in a room and see what happens.

“And what of the common folk of Faerghus, then?” she asks instead. “What do they seek?”

“Oh, El.” Dimitri sighs and shakes his head. “To sleep in a bed and not on the run. To know that there will be food when next they hunger. To know that someone they love will not fall in battle on the morrow, or be strung on the ramparts of Fhirdiad by Cornelia’s dogs for breathing a wrong word. There are many that Faerghus has failed.” It’s raw, honest. “More in the west, I gather. But the occupation and the civil war have made everything so, so much worse. It’s…I could barely comprehend it. When I hid in the slums. Not—not that I even saw what was around me on many days. But when I did, the state my people are in…” He swallows hard, raises his chin. “In time, of course they’d want education, wealth, self-determination. Who wouldn’t? But right now, the last thing they need is a new war, a new occupation, even a kinder one.”

“If you are Her Majesty’s puppet king,” Hubert says into the brief, heavy silence, “that too would be an occupation.”

Dimitri’s face crumples, and he smiles, quick and bitter. “The kindest one, I can only hope. I would only ask that we are not tributary. We are a poor land, and Cornelia has already stripped us bare. Anything wrung from Faerghus is blood money.”

“I had expected to run Faerghus in the red for some time,” Edelgard murmurs.

“This is all very pretty,” Hubert says, an edge to his voice that even Edelgard can’t quite decipher. “But even assuming you can bring Faerghus to heel, that is only one step on Her Majesty’s path. When will all this shiny new idealism of yours compel you to turn on us?”

Edelgard expects Dimitri to hedge. Swear again that he simply won’t because he loves her. She doesn’t expect him to lift his chin, even with her collar heavy on his throat, and look her dead in the eye.

“When you kill those who offer no resistance.” Hubert bristles, but Dimitri continues, unhesitating. “When you take from those who have nothing to take, or when you ravage those you’ve conquered simply to enrich yourselves. When you burn fields and villages, put old folk and children to the sword, and enforce laws that keep your subjects cowed and well-used. When you willingly hand the human world to Thales. Then, yes, I will be the lance at your back, and it will be the final service I render to you, El.”

Edelgard holds her empty teacup a little too tight, rattling in its saucer, and lifts her chin in return. “And I would thank you for that service, Dimitri.”

“Do you think she would?” Hubert hisses.

“I am petitioning for a way to help both her and my people,” Dimitri points out. “Not to return her collar.”

Hubert’s silent for a moment, and in the heavy stillness, Lady Celestine snorts and twitches in her sleep.

“Her Majesty’s path,” Hubert says heavily, “does not encompass only Faerghus.”

Dimitri sighs, bowing his head. “I…still question if the benefit of conquering Leicester outweighs the cost in blood. And I believe you have nothing to lose but pride by opening diplomatic channels first. Though I can at least trust that Claude will not sacrifice life heedlessly.”

“And the Church?” Edelgard asks, bristling slightly. Pride and _time_ —the one thing she’d never told him. The mere thought of wasting months upon months compromising everything she believed in with a roundtable of bickering nobles when she could simply _take_ the little country—later, that would be a thorn in her side for later. “What of them, once you take the throne of the _Holy_ Kingdom?”

“The iron fist they’ve held, the progress they’ve banned…” He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and lifts his chin. “Rhea wields power poorly, and the cardinals are wretched. I don’t deny that many in Faerghus hold the church in high esteem, but they have also taken liberties with our sovereignty of late. And the petty religious wars between the Central and Western Churches have spilled needless blood, especially in Faerghus, though that blame for that lies with the Agarthans as much as with Rhea. But let me ask you: what about the people the Church supports?”

“The faithful will be allowed worship,” she answers. “Just as those of any religion would be. I will not stoop to Rhea’s level.”

“I don’t speak of the faithful. I speak of the needy, those the Church shelters and supports. There are many for whom the destruction of their local church would be the same as losing their family and home in one.”

“That support has always come with strings, Dimitri.” She feels herself frowning. Hubert, in the corner of her eye, is unamused. “I have no need to raze every country church, but it is past time that the people of Fódlan learn to depend on themselves instead of an organization intent on controlling them.”

“You cannot take bread from the hand of a child and expect him to wish his own slice from thin air simply because you have said he is free to do so.” There’s a strange, high-pitched creaking in the air, and she realizes after a moment it’s the locking spell straining. Hubert’s jaw tightens, There’s an edge like thunder in Dimitri’s voice, and she realizes it’s been weeks since she’s seen his anger. Even longer since she’s seen it aimed at anything but himself. “You may as well run him through and tell him it is for his own good. Is that how you wish to treat the people you rule, Edelgard?”

Hubert draws breath through his teeth, hissing, the dark light of another spell held in his hand.

“No,” Edelgard says, keeping her voice as level and frank as she can. “I wish to build a world where his parents can earn enough to feed him—”

“What parents?”

“Or where he will be cared for, but not by an organization that holds that as a debt over his head and works him dawn to dusk without pay.”

Dimitri blinks, breathes twice between his teeth. “Do you speak of Cyril?”

“Are you going to tell me you think that treatment was appropriate?” Edelgard bites out. “Just because he was fed and sheltered? People need more than food, Dimitri. They need freedom, self-determination. The Church takes that from everyone it touches.”

Dimitri lifts his head, brow furrowing as he searches her face. “There were…thirty-three orphans, I think, sheltering at Garreg Mach when I was at school.”

“What does that have to do with,” Edelgard starts.

“At least before the refugees from Remire came in.” The name sends a chill down her spine, a stab of guilt that closes her throat. “That…added quite a few. And I didn’t get to know the new ones. I wasn’t. At my best. By then.” He shakes himself gently. “All of them except Cyril…they did chores, yes, but they were little tasks, the same one might give any child. The same sort given to us.”

“And how do you know this?” Hubert prods, clearly annoyed with this digression.

“I taught them swordplay in my free time. They’d talk about their lives. Not…untroubled, certainly. They wouldn’t have been there if they hadn’t known more loss and fear than any child should. But their life in the monastery was as free as it would be if they still had a family.”

“You taught them swordplay,” Edelgard murmurs, shaking her head. Of _course_ he had. “Yet Cyril was still being thoroughly exploited,” Edelgard says, brow furrowing. “Was it because of his personal attachment to Rhea? Was that coming from her and not the staff?”

“No,” Dimitri says, like it’s obvious. “El, it’s because he’s Almyran. I’m not saying there aren’t problems with how the Church handles certain matters. Only that they aren’t always the problems you think they are.”

“Why would he let that much be put upon him for something so trivial?” Edelgard frowns harder, turning her teacup around in its saucer.

“I…didn’t know him well. I can only guess.” Dimitri’s quiet for a time. “But…when the whole world looks at you askance because of what you are, you. Contort yourself, to manage it. To deflect what they hate in you.” His voice goes small, swallowed tight. “I saw Dedue do it. Back at Garreg Mach. Did everyone from the Church truly accept that Cyril had a right to be there, that he was an orphaned child to care for like any other? Or did they whisper that Almyrans are lazy barbarians, just as those of Duscur are liars and blackguards?”

Edelgard blinks, stunned into silence.

“I…don’t know either,” Dimitri says. “As I’ve said, I can only speculate. But the Church and those close to it do not always treat those from outside Fódlan fairly.”

“Yet another reason why it should fall, then,” Edelgard throws out, biting. Now she wants to put this man in a room with _Petra_ and see what they come out with. Or Dorothea. Which is madness—he must remain hidden, he has backed himself into working on the level of Hubert’s most shadowy operatives, knowing things even her Prime Minister is ignorant of—she’ll have to tell him about Rhea at some point, she supposes, she’s been putting off _that_ terribly awkward conversation—

“As an institution with political influence,” Dimitri says. “Yes. But—”

“Yes, of course, I’m not going to throw sad orphans out in the cold, Dimitri.” Her forehead itches; she realizes, as she gives in to the urge to rub her face, that she’s still wearing her crown. “You’re not even angling to be a puppet. You’re angling to be an advisor.”

Dimitri blinks. “I…suppose so. Whatever form it takes, El. I simply…”

“Cannot sit by,” she says with a sigh. They really are a little too alike at times. Dimitri nods, a sad smile on his lips. “And yes, Hubert, you are perfectly capable of muzzling him if I do not want him as an advisor, as I’m sure you also wish to muzzle Ferdinand at times.” She savors the quick and furious line of a blush on his bony cheeks, then looks back to Dimitri, curious. “You were angry with me. I hadn’t seen that for some time.”

He ducks his head. “I am sorry. That was…unnecessary.”

“I’m not upset,” she says firmly. “I understand better now. Where it comes from. In a way, I’m glad that it hasn’t died in you, since it’s rooted in the care you have for others.”

Dimitri stares at her, wide-eyed and stunned. Then fumbles, “Not…all of it. Sometimes it’s the. The past I can’t escape.”

“Still.” She closes her eyes for a moment, takes a deep and careful breath, then lifts her chin. “If I am to make a world where everyone can stand on their own, free of the oppression of the old order, I cannot abandon those who have not yet found their feet. That’s…something I have been realizing as I move closer to my goals.”

Dimitri nods. Takes a steadying breath of his own. Slowly relaxes his shoulders. “We were not taught these things. Only the…the easy surface of the world.”

“Yes,” she sighs, thinking of the file on Enbarr’s homeless mounting on her desk. “It’s alarming what simmers under one’s very nose. Countless people in Adrestia are…well, possibly not much better off than the poor of Faerghus. Less freezing, I suppose. Without even the Church’s questionable support to rely on. And the Empire has far less excuse for it. We _have_ the wealth, but it’s been hoarded by the nobility, not used.”

Dimitri relaxes another inch, nods again. “I was taught my duty. To protect and nourish the people above all. Poverty and famine nip ever at our heels in Faerghus. When even one’s noble friend is scraping by, it’s…harder to forget. But I had only the barest idea until I saw it.”

“You mentioned the slums?” she asks, draining the cold dregs of her tea.

“I…hid there. I don’t know how long.” A quiet, distant shiver runs through him. “Fhirdiad, under Cornelia. But further, I think. Villages whose grain had been taken. I walked through the woods for…days, weeks, I don’t know. Children with empty eyes and arms like twigs and bellies swollen.”

Edelgard jolts, teacup rattling, and peels her hand off it. Her second brother, triumphant with the sword in the training lists, always so boisterous with the hounds. They’d starved him. To see if the spells they’d burned into his blood could keep him alive. They—hadn’t. The _smell_ of his cell—she’d never forget it. Muscles wasting, years of his proud work, pissed down his drain—

“Sometimes,” Dimitri says, distant, “there would be bodies in the streets because nobody had the strength to bury them. I dug holes for them in the night. Cornelia’s soldiers with eagles on their breasts came to beat me for it, and I tore them apart and left them for the dogs. One of them was so young—”

“Enough,” Hubert says flatly, rising from his armchair. “Dimitri, quiet. Do not forget where you are.” He puts all the force of a battlefield commander behind it, and Dimitri blinks, stunned, lapsing into silence.

Black linen fills Edelgard’s field of view.

Hubert always wears linen. Finely tailored, cut to pass for noble clothes, but easier to boil the blood out of. It’s crisp under her fist, satisfying. His smell hits her, the whisper of ozone, and he takes her teacup, then offers her one white-gloved hand.

She clutches it until she can breathe, and he makes one small noise of surprise. Wraps both her arms around his and buries her face in the crook of his elbow, because if she can’t allow herself one brief moment of clinging to Hubert like when she was younger, what is even the point of having this? Safe in her room with only the people who know her. The two of them in all the world.

There’s a rustle of movement, and then Dimitri’s voice, very soft. “I just…want to kneel with her. I’ll be quiet.”

“Very well,” Hubert mutters after a thick silence. “Approach.”

Warmth settles against her leg. A weight on her knee. Two bodies bracketing her. She keeps holding Hubert, not particularly wanting to peel herself off him—she _could_ , she probably should, she has had her moment of weakness and she should pull herself together, it’s past time—

“Shall we leave, Lady Edelgard?” Hubert asks quietly.

The solid weight of Dimtiri’s face on her knee lifts. “The past,” he murmurs, soft but urgent, “hangs closer when one is alone with one’s thoughts.”

Edelgard twitches, once, digs fingernails into Hubert’s bony elbow, and of course he doesn’t flinch. “I didn’t say this had anything to do with the past,” she mutters, still with her face in Hubert’s jacket.

“El,” he says gently. “I know a little of that look.”

Which, she thinks dimly, is probably an understatement. Still. “It doesn’t affect me as it does you.” She forces herself to lift her head from Hubert’s chest. “I’m quite all right.” Dimitri, still cuffed, looks up at her, quiet and gentle, and she settles a hand in his hair. “You don’t need to give me that face,” she says fondly.

“Her Majesty,” Hubert says to Dimitri, a little slow, like he’s deep in thought, “has had a long day. Your request has been heard, and I assume you are not fool enough to think everything shall change immediately.” Dimitri gives a small nod. “In the meantime, I believe she would appreciate a bath. I’m sure we can arrange this pleasantly.”

Dimitri’s eye widens just a touch, and then he softens, ducking his head to kiss Edelgard’s knee in adoration.

“Your conspiracy,” Edelgard says, voice just a little thin, “is charming, but…”

She fumbles to a halt. But what? She has the evening clear. The chills of her past are closer than usual, much as she hates to admit it.

Hubert lifts a hand, spell circle lighting, and unlocks Dimitri’s cuffs.

* * *

Edelgard falls into a deep, deep sleep, putty in their hands, carried to and from the bath, massaged head to toe, and lavished with their tongues and fingers and cocks until the past is the past and the present is nothing but their bare hot skin and their heartbeats under her ear.

Edelgard wakes in the pre-dawn to the soft creak of the cage door opening.

Dimitri slides out, carefully quiet, unfolds naked and glowing in the dark, and pads over to rummage for his mage’s robe.

Hubert stops breathing, slits one eye open to scan the room, and goes back to sleep.

Dimitri dresses slowly, with an odd sense of deliberation in his movements, and it’s that more than anything which holds Edelgard’s attention, keeps her from rolling back over in her duvet. Dimitri often leaves early so he can soak up the sun in his cell or on the east roof. Perhaps this is simply his newfound purpose that drives his movements. Still.

She chews her lip. Leans over to kiss Hubert on the temple, and he neither changes his breathing nor makes a noise, but his cool fingers brush her arm in acknowledgement.

Dimitri, robed, slips through her bedroom door, and Edelgard scoots out of bed, throws her dressing gown over her nightgown, and follows.

He pauses, very briefly, just outside her suite, like he’s sensed her, and then keeps walking. He seems to stand taller than before, his strides longer. Not that she worries about losing him; she’s used to keeping pace with trees.

He comes out on the roof and stands there for a moment, face turned to the sky, before peeling off his mask.

Edelgard stares at his back for a long while in the dim light of dawn, breathing the fresh cold air. Then comes up beside him, a few feet away.

He looks to her, vaguely curious, and she offers him a faint smile.

The sun rises in silence.

Edelgard’s mind goes in circles, gnawing. Gnawing on ridiculous thoughts, childish urges, too huge and far-reaching to fully pick apart right now.

“I don’t know if I’ve made this clear,” she murmurs at long last. “I have never thought it would be possible to accomplish my goals without conquest. I couldn’t imagine there was even the smallest chance anyone else in power would be willing to collaborate with me. If I could. If I could build a new age for Fódlan. _Without_ spinning my wheels in compromises that leave a generation to suffer while a few things change but the pillars of power remain. If I—we—could do that…” Her throat tightens. “Yes, of course I would accept that.”

Dimitri nods slowly. “But you doubt it is possible.” He tips his head back to the sky, thoughtful. “I’m not sure it is either. Cornelia…has made everything difficult. If you could denounce her, turn on her as a traitor to your interests, and make amends to Faerghus through peace…” He takes a careful breath, lets it out as a sigh. “But of course that would tip your hand.”

“I will need to fight that war at some point. But I cannot afford to do it from a position of disadvantage. They’re far too dangerous.” She chews her lip. “And that does not address Leicester, or whether Faerghus would revolt against you…”

The pad of his thumb, warm and rough, smoothes across her lip.

Edelgard makes a tiny, stunned noise in spite of herself.

Dimitri’s turned a little, looking down at her with quiet tenderness. Two fingers trace her cheekbone, excruciatingly gentle.

“That’s my job,” Edelgard manages, voice caught in her throat, because how many times had she once fussed over his red-bitten lips?

“You helped me not be too hard on myself,” he murmurs in answer, and then leans down to kiss the top of her head. “You should afford yourself the same kindness.”

She almost orders him to his knees right then, but it’s a dreadful impulse, really. She doesn’t _want_ him there right now; she’d just be a scared little girl scrabbling to keep control of the situation. “What happened, Dimitri? What changed in you?”

“I…don’t know. Nothing happened. I just…kept existing.” She reaches up to cup his cheek in return and he leans into it, eye drifting closed. “Something in me which I thought was dead healed as I sheltered in your care.”

“What was it?”

His brow furrows, and he turns to kiss her hand as he fumbles for words. “My…soul, probably.”

Edelgard looks up at him for a long, long moment, then realizes her chest is aching. Breathing. Perhaps she should do that. The ache doesn’t stop. “Do you still hear them?”

He squeezes his eye shut. “Sometimes,” he admits, small and raw. “Maybe a soul heals more readily than a mind. It’s. Easier now. To tell myself that I.” He touches his collar. “I will avenge them. I will do what I can for their people. But I don’t. Belong to them. And I do those things for myself, too. For my own needs.”

She slips her fingers between his, skin-warmed metal under both their hands. “Will this pull us apart?” she whispers, lips dry. “This resolve of yours…if we can’t find a way without war.”

Dimitri’s face cracks a little, and he takes her hand with care in both of his huge ones, studying it, running a hand over the thick-built callus in the crook of her thumb. “I will not fight you. Rather we are more likely to be pulled apart if we can forge peace. If it comes to me ruling Faerghus in some form…”

“You’d put caring for your people over your own happiness,” Edelgard sighs.

“As if you do not,” he says, not unkindly.

She puts her face into the warm swell of his arm. “Is it wretched that I almost resent this soul you’ve regrown?”

“No,” he answers simply. “I know you do not truly resent it. Some part of you, it seems, sought this from the start.”

She picks her head up, eyes wide, with another tiny stunned noise. “I—I didn’t, I just—”

“You who refused my empty shell,” Dimitri explains, patient.

“Oh.” She swallows down a disgruntled noise, and feels oddly like she’s dancing on the back foot. And for once he’s not stepping on her toes. Just—guiding her like he already knows where she wants to move. “Then—then what about the part of me that wants to keep you, locked up here and safe, because if you go off to Faerghus and they kill you, blind to what you’re doing for them—”

“You wouldn’t, though,” he says, like he has nothing to fear.

“No,” she says, crumpling. “I wouldn’t.” She squeezes her eyes shut, resists the urge to rub them. “I’d just be very, very upset.”

“They…are still my people, at least,” he offers. “Let me manage that danger, if it comes to that. And I’m not the easiest man to kill.”

She thins her lips, walking fingers over the swell of his bicep. Easier to kill if he doesn’t fight back. “You are still mine. I’m not going to leave you out in the cold, Dimitri.” The thought springs idle in her swirling mind. “I can’t deny that they’d resent you as a puppet of the Empire, even if I’m not sure how disastrous that would be. Would they resent it less if you were my spouse?”

Dimitri makes a choked noise of surprise, and she realizes only as the blood rushes to her face that she’d just—oh. Oh dear. That was not how she intended to propose to _anybody_. Never mind him. _Would_ she even want to propose to him?

“I—I—“ Dimitri fumbles, and Edelgard opens her mouth to regain some control of the situation, but before she can decide what to say, he blurts out, “I’d assumed you and Hubert would wed.”

“What?” Edelgard squeaks. “No! He’s—he’s my Vestra, I can’t make him my Empress, that would be _weird._ ”

Dimitri makes a garbled syllable or two that might not even be a recognizable word, then manages, “Is that an Adrestian thing I don’t understand?”

“Yes, that’s an Adrestian thing you don’t understand.”

“Your—empress?”

“Adrestian positions are titled according to ruling or inheriting party rather than gender,” Edelgard says, managing to make an entire coherent sentence, because explaining imperial titles is easier than just about anything else she could say right now. “I am the Emperor by right of blood. My first spouse, regardless of gender, would be my Empress. At least if they are also Adrestian. The titles get a little more complicated in cases of international alliance-marriages where the spouse retains sovereign power and title in their own lands, but there’s precedent for that sort of thing, you’d probably be my Prince Consort—oh, please smack me, I am turning into Ferdinand von Aegir.”

Dimitri baps the top of her head with one palm, barely more than a pat. “That cannot possibly be the case. You’re still small.”

Edelgard pouts, catches that wrist, and bites the base of his thumb. “It’s not my fault you became a tree. You _used_ to be a reasonable size.” And how many years have they been caught up in each other? It hits her like a hammer for a moment, leaving her breathless, and she buries herself in that billowing mage robe, holding him tight around the ribs.

He wraps around her, wordless.

“There is much I need to look into,” she mumbles into his chest. “If we’re truly moving in this direction—this changes everything. Perhaps if you appear to be acting on your own, Cornelia’s death won’t tip my hand. Though I’ve promised the people of Adrestia a restored Empire, and I don’t know how much I can afford to change that. And there’s no telling where Claude will jump, never mind what the roundtable would back…”

He rubs gently between her shoulderblades.

“And while we spin our wheels.” She gives a black and bitter laugh. “The people of Faerghus suffer.”

“Not even you can fix the world overnight, El,” he says quietly into her hair.

“I wanted to,” she admits, feeling terribly small.

“I know.” He kisses the top of her head. “So do I.” He takes a deep breath. Lets it out. Unwraps so he can slide to his knees, and she lets him go almost reluctantly, lets him take both her hands in his and kiss the backs of each in turn. “Together, then.” He looks up at her, pink-cheeked, blue eye shining. “Whatever way it goes. We’ll cut this path together.”


	7. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

His Majesty Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, the Savior King of Faerghus, is a wall of shining blue and silver in the well-appointed field tent that the monarchs have retired to, and Edelgard doesn’t doubt that his diamond-crowned brow might be brushing the ceiling had the tent not been pitched by his closest vassal. She feels like she’s forgotten how _big_ he is, though he certainly does cut a different figure in the royal armor and the wide circle of his fur-topped cloak than he does naked on her floor.

The announcement of their alliance by engagement, along with Edelgard’s guarded repudiation of Cornelia’s policies and guarantee of reparations and Faerghus’ sovereignty, could certainly have gone worse. Largely, she suspects, because the people of Faerghus will cheer themselves hoarse if Dimitri so much as appears in their presence, raises a hand, and grants them a royal belch. Edelgard is hardly unpopular in Adrestia, perhaps the best-loved Emperor in two centuries, but that’s nothing next to the exultant adoration Dimitri’s people beam up at him. It could make anyone a little drunk, but he takes it with nervous caution, that all-too familiar look of a man who isn’t sure he’s earned what he’s receiving.

Edelgard herself might know a little of that giddy, worshipful joy at the sight of a minted-cream scraggle of hair in Dimitri’s retinue. A gray coat that makes her heart ache fit to burst. And Dimitri has been doubly blessed: Dedue, riddled with scars, even stonier, but _alive,_ had stood at his side, dwarfing him in his heavy armor.

Hope is a strange sensation. For them both, she’s sure.

She swallows it. They will have to move against the Agarthans swiftly. Dimitri’s rallied the pettier local church officials to the cause of rebuilding from the occupation and begun his political surgery of detangling Faerghus from its servitude to the bully pulpit, but Rhea stonewalled his every attempt to negotiate with her in her cell, and the Knights of Seiros are still skulking in the shadows. Edelgard’s barely had a chance to speak with Byleth, who is technically the acting archbishop. And Claude remains stubbornly enigmatic, an unknown factor. It is far too early to relax, even with the hope her old teacher brings. But for this afternoon, at least, she can allow Dimitri to take her hand, bowing to kiss her scarlet glove with his crown still shining on his brow.

“The silencing spell is in effect,” Hubert says, finally lowering his hand as the elaborate weave of magic fades into the tent’s fabric. “We have privacy.” He taps his chin, a cruel smile on his lips. “Is it common knowledge that the diamonds of the Lion’s Crown are paste? Or is that simply a replica worn for parade appearances?”

“It is a replica,” Dimitri says, not straightening, clearly amused. “Though two of the diamonds in the original are missing. My grandfather sold them to the Count Hevring of his day, for aid during the Great Winter Drought. Or so it’s said. It may have been to fund the Daphnel skirmishes with the Alliance, I’m not quite sure.”

“I see.” Edelgard rests her hands on either side of it, framing his brow.

“Please,” Dimitri murmurs, and sinks to one knee with a heavy clank of armor. The blue of his cloak spreads, the Blaiddyd crest rippling in the folds of it. His eye closes, peaceful.

Edelgard feels her belly burn with desire, but keeps her hands and voice steady, savoring the slow dance as he settles at her feet after so many months apart. Too long. No doubt far longer for him. “Does it rest heavy?” she asks quietly.

“At times. But it would be far heavier without you. I’ve…missed you, El.”

She lifts the crown from his head, the lighter heft of plated brass instead of pure silver. Hands it to Hubert, who in turn lays it on a field stool with just a bare smidge of respect. Dimitri lifts his head a little, looking up at her, and carefully rests a gauntleted hand on her elbow. Their armor clinks.

“I’ve missed you too,” she breathes, chest a little tight. “My Dimitri.” She touches his gorget. “Do you still have it?”

“Of course.” She can hear him swallow in the magic-muted stillness of the tent, sealed far away from the milling crowd outside. “Dedue…knows. He could tell that I hadn’t been starving. That I’d found someone to serve.” Edelgard nods, accepting. This secret would ruin Dimitri far faster than it would herself, after all, and he clearly trusts Dedue with everything he is. “The Professor might have a guess. But I don’t think anyone else suspects.”

“Good. I’d like to speak with him, I think, should we get the chance. And my teacher, of course.” She runs fingers through Dimitri’s hair, light and careful so that she does not catch it in the joints. “We have a little time, yes?”

“Yes.” He leans into her hand, eye half-lidded, breath coming a little fast. The need is palpable. He’s been unfulfilled for months, after all. He’s carrying himself well, with an aura of true strength, but she can see the weariness as he lets it fall aside.

“Strip,” she says, letting command trickle into her voice, and she can see it hit him like a drug. “Strip and kneel for me.”

“Yes, El,” he breathes, and does.

It takes a while. The armor is elaborate, and he handles it with care, cautious not to break the straps. She takes the time to have Hubert get her out of a few of her own layers, get them some tea, and make sure Dimitri has a pillow available. And to set a wooden box in her lap. A gift, awaiting its wearer. Hubert kneels himself, and she takes a moment to pull his hair and kiss him as Dimitri unlaces his arming doublet, and then Hubert slides carefully out the tent flap to tie it behind him and stand guard. Side-by-side with Dedue, no doubt. Well, that will be terribly awkward.

Finally, Dimitri is naked. Even the eyepatch, though he struggles a little before taking it off. It’s strange seeing his wrists and ankles bare. Even after all the arrangements, even after he was a free man in Enbarr, restricted only by the high secrecy of his presence, he’d worn those cuffs until his last day in the palace. He’d shaken for minutes after Hubert had unlocked them. The only thing left on him is a talisman on a leather thong: clear glass etched with a gryphon. The sort of thing a lost prince might have picked up as a keepsake on his journey back to claim his crown. Nothing remarkable, nothing like a collar.

Only the people in this tent know what it means. The glass is from an old broken pane of the far east wing of the imperial palace. The pattern around the edge is part of the circle to cast the binding spell. And the thong is cut from the blue leather that wound the hilt of the dagger he’d given her. She’s replaced the wrapping, of course. Dimitri had been the one to point out that the gryphon, for all that it was an ancient symbol of Faerghus, was a remarkably apt sign of cooperation between the countries. The union of the eagle and lion.

She touches the glass as Dimitri kneels, and pulls him up by the thong to devour his mouth until they can both barely breathe, and then he kisses her hand and settles back on his heels with clear, almost painful relief, so intense he trembles with it. This is where he belongs. Even if they can only steal days like this. At least the marriage will give them a good excuse for private time. Maybe someday she can hand the throne over, if her health doesn’t fail her, and retire north. Putter around painting in apple orchards and stay out of Faerghan politics for her own sanity. But in the meantime, at least there’s this.

Edelgard opens the box in her lap. “For when we’re alone together.”

It’s a full set. Collar, cuffs for wrists and ankles, in imperial scarlet with brass-coated hardware. They’re broad, thick doubled-over leather, but still light compared to what he used to wear. Two gryphons rampant frame the ring at the front of the collar, tooled and gilded, and her monogram is worked around the ring itself.

This collar doesn’t lock, no more than Hubert’s does, no more than Dimitri’s necklace does. But a second key has joined the old battered one on the chain tucked under Edelgard’s armor.

Dimitri blinks, eye going wide. “I…thought you’d bring the old ones.”

“They’re in the luggage.” She smiles, ruffling his hair. “And I can always lock those on you if you need the heavy shackles. But let me decorate you for now.” She lifts the collar out of the box, and he leans to kiss it unbidden. “As long as you wear this, you’re in my bedchamber. My submissive. Nothing more.”

He kisses it again, almost groaning with relief. “Thank you, El,” he breathes, hands already settling behind his back. “Are they…just leather?”

“They’re lined with agarthium mesh. Hubert says they might not stand up to your full strength, but you’re not going to tear them by accident.”

Dimitri relaxes, a faint smile on his lips. “He’s a treasure.”

“As always.” She smooths a hand over his forehead, glancing at the hourglass Hubert’s set out. “I can only keep you for about an hour right now. You’ll have to be back on your feet after that.” Dimitri nods, tongue darting over his lips. “But for now. Lift your hair up for me.”

He does, and she buckles the collar around his neck, and he sways almost boneless at her feet, and the yellow in his hair shines over the scarlet as she lets his hands fall back behind him.

“There you are,” she murmurs, and runs her fingers around the monogram, and gives the ring a tug. “My Dimitri.”

He smiles, peaceful. “Yours, El.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not long after, the King of Faerghus solemnly presented the Emperor of Adrestia with a hostage to keep an aging lady company: a [very fluffy kitten](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/158963061823434109/). Because we all know in our souls that Faerghus has giant shaggy forest cats that squeak.
> 
> Thank you again to mllelaurel and lionheart and all my discord friends, and also to all of you who followed along! This fic has been an adventure, and I couldn't have done it alone. <3

**Author's Note:**

> [ART!!](https://twitter.com/LionheartNsfw/status/1320038478059606021)
> 
> I [tweet](https://twitter.com/letterblade).


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